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Moscow Film Museum in danger

Beginning of December, electricity has been cut off the Moscow Film Museum. The cinema theaters (300 to 500 visitors each evening), the exhibition space and the library are out of order. This obvious attack against the Film Museum has been caused by the company Kinozentr, which claimed the Film Museum to sign a new contract. According to this new contract, the Film Museum will have to give up all its halls, and will be offered another space for a very high rent.

Naum Klejman, the director of the Film Museum, writes us:

– "that the whole building is owned by the Russion Filmmakers Union, which has the legal papers to prove this";

– "that the Kinozentr Company does therefore not have any rights to claim the space of the Film Museum";

– "that the Film Museum as a State Museum is protected by law against such attacks".

The Film Museum in Moscow is a prestigious stronghold of film culture, its work has been nationally and internationally recognized. FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics, cannot take any threat of this important institution and asks therefore the responsible Minister of Culture, Mr. Michail Schwidkoy, to undertake all necessary steps to protect the Film Museum and to guarantee its existence and further work.

The International Forum of Young Cinema at the Berlin Film Festival joins this declaration.

Please address your sympathy to:

Naum Klejman: naum@museikino.ru
Michail Schwidkoy: mincult.givc@g23.relcom.ru

FIPRESCI
Michel Ciment, President
Klaus Eder, General Secretary

December 15, 2002

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A letter from the Moscow Film Museum

Dear friends!

We thank you heartily for your support that turned to be very effective.

After December 02, when the "Kinocenter" company switched off electricity in our screening and exhibition halls, the events developed as follows:

During four days, we were forced to cancel all our programs. For December 6, a meeting was planned between our public and the wonderful Polish actor and filmmaker Jerzy Stuhr. Active protests from the side of the Polish Embassy in Russia, addressed to the Russian Ministry of Culture, lead to the fact that electricity was switched on again in our halls - two hours before the meeting that was held with enormous success.

But the direction of the "Kinocenter" declared that it switched on electricity "until a special order" (from whom? to whom?). According to the information that we have got, it wanted to "punish" us again on December 16. This did not occur thanks to the widest explosion of public indignation. Your letters were its essential part, letters that came from all sides of our planet. Articles of protest appeared in Moscow and Russian press, reportages from the Museum were broadcasted at almost all TV channels, the radio station "Echo of Moscow" informed the audience regularly about the situation in the Museum of Cinema. Most important Russian filmmakers expressed their protest against the "Kinocenter"'s aggression, among them there were Nikita Mikhalkov, Andrei Smirnov, Marlen Khutsiev, Alexander Mitta, Vadim Abdrashitov, Yuri Norstein and others. Students of VGIK, of Russian Humanitarian University and of other high schools gathered hundreds of signatures supporting the Museum; about 1500 signatures of our spectators and friends appeared on the site www.museikino.ru.

On December 11, the Plenum of the Russian Filmmaker's Union Direction adopted a special resolution confirming the right of the Museum to its premises and supporting its activity.

On December 19, Mikhail Shvidkoi confirmed that the Ministry of Culture would participate on the side of the Museum in a trial against the commercial company "Kinocenter". He declared: "To conserve the Museum of Cinema is our holy duty".

The struggle is not yet over. But in these dramatic days, we have felt all the strength of our colleagues' and spectators' solidarity in the face of criminals. And this is the pledge of our victory - the victory of culture, honour and democracy.

Again, thanks to you all!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Naum Kleiman
and the whole collective of the Museum of Cinema

December 23, 2002

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