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Western blockbuster movies fly in the face of Russian values and aren’t worth showing in the country’s cinemas, Moscow’s Ministry of Culture has insisted, amid calls for the government to allow bootleg screenings in spite of a Hollywood embargo.
The vice-speaker of Russia’s parliament, Vladislav Davankov, wrote to officials asking them to launch a pilot scheme where theaters could show popular new releases, including Barbie and Oppenheimer, even if studios have refused to license them in the country.
However, in a response seen by state news agency TASS on Thursday, Deputy Culture Minister Andrei Malyshev rejected the appeal based on his choice of movies.
“We believe that the films you have proposed for viewing by the citizens of our country — Barbie and Oppenheimer — do not meet the aims and objectives set out by the head of state, to preserve and strengthen traditional Russian spiritual and moral values,” he said.
It’s not the first time that Greta Gerwig’s billion-dollar grossing feature film has faced a tough crowd in Russia, with one review for state-run RIA Novosti warning that it “distorts feminism” by portraying “strong men without children” and “stupid men.”
Instead, Malyshev believes Russians are well-served by domestic productions, like animated children’s film Cheburashka — about a mischievous furry-eared creature that gets into comical scrapes with authority. The Challenge, a Russian state-backed film shot on the International Space Station, is also more suitable viewing, he went on.
According to the minister, making up for the lack of foreign content in the wake of Western firms’ exit from the country has stimulated the country’s own industry. Cheburashka, however, has an average rating of 7.2 out of 10 on Russian film website Kinopoisk.
Meanwhile, there are warnings that Russian cinemas face unprecedentedly tough times with a lack of customers following a decision from Western studios not to export their films to the country in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
