news: The Moscow Film Museum

From:
Ulrich and Erika Gregor, Berlin
To:
Klaus Eder
Secretary General, FIPRESCI

Dear Mr. Eder,

We have read the various letters and documents sent by Mr. Mikhalkov concerning the Moscow Cinema Museum and its present crisis.

We are glad to read in the letter sent by Mr. Mikhalkov to Mr. Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, that he strongly defends the cause of the Cinema Museum.

However, referring the case to the competence of the Russian Government, as Mr. Putin has done, does not yet constitute a solution of the problem. A lasting and acceptable new location has to be found for the Cinema Museum.

Therefore, some facts do remain which are in no way invented:

1. Mr. Kleiman was informed already in February 2005 by Mr. Mikhalkov by telephone that the Cinema Museum has to give up the premises it presently uses within the Kino Zentr at a short notice. This news was communicated by Mr. Mikhalkov in his quality as president of the Federation of Russian Filmmakers.

2. The sale of the Kino Zentr building by the Federation of Filmmakers to a private company with the ensuing consequences is also a fact contested by no one, including Mr. Mikhalkov.

We noticed a passage in the letter written by Mr. Mikhalkov to Mr. Putin in which he says: "The said private companies regard as nothing more than a recommendation the decision to reserve the premises occupied by the Cinema Museum until it receives its own building as approved by the VI convention of the Union of Filmmakers of Russia." This means that from the point of view of the new owners of the building the expulsion of the Cinema Museum is actually possible and legally justified. It seems that Mr. Mikhalkov does share this point of view. He confirms it since he writes: "The Cinema Museum has become homeless."

In the letter from Mr. Mikhalkov to Mr. Sokolov, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, it says: "The sales contract involves the buyer's obligation to take no measures for evicting the Cinema Museum until the latter moves to the premises allowing performing its activity in full. In this connection the buyer is delaying 50% of the cost of shares sold." Without doubt this ("delaying 50 %") is the main reason why so much pressure is being exercised upon the Cinema Museum to vacate its premises.

From our point of view it is not only justified but imperative to draw attention to the critical situation in which the Cinema Museum presently finds itself and to explain the reasons and conditions which have brought about this situation.

Quite recently, new projects of the Russian Ministry of Culture have become known: this ministry, as it has declared, plans to construct a building for the Cinema Museum in a central district of Moscow, the building shall be ready by 2010.

Also, an intermediate solution seems ready to lodge the treasures of the Cinema Museum within the premises of the Mosfilm studios in Moscow.

But in the meantime, until a definite solution for the Cinema Museum has been found and its new location is secured, the Cinema Museum should remain within the premises it presently uses at Kino Zentr. Especially, the activities of film screenings and retrospectives must continue.

We encourage Mr. Mikhalkov to join these initiatives and to respect the wishes and decisions of the members of the Union of Filmmakers as well as the wishes of many friends and admirers of the Cinema Museum all over the world - who have expressed their firm conviction that the Cinema Museum should remain at Kino Zentr until an adequate new location has been found.

Ulrich and Erika Gregor
Berlin, March 21, 2005

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