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With the beginning of perestroika in the middle 1980s, many
previously forbidden films, some of which had lain on the shelf for
over 20 years, began to be publicly shown.
Film studios were granted artistic
and financial independence, censorship was abolished, and the state
monopoly on purchase and screening of foreign films was broken.
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A host of
private film companies emerged. New films such as Little Vera
received large popular acclaim because they showed for the first
time in Soviet history many of the ills of Soviet society, such as
alcoholism and mass cynicism.
In 1987
the film Repentance,
directed by Georgian Tengiz Abuladze, also drew record audiences
for its allegorical portrayal of the rise and fall of the Stalin
dictatorship and the evils of totalitarianism.
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The breakup of
the Soviet Union in 1991 sped up the disintegration of the national
film industry. Following a sharp rise in the annual film output of
up to an average of 500 pictures during perestroika (compared to
140-150 motion pictures per year in the pre-perestroika period), it
tumbled to 20, as most private film companies became insolvent and
collapsed. During the 1990s private investors were reluctant to
finance film projects and unwilling to invest money to update the
equipment of film studios.
Over the recent
years Russian filmmakers seem to be
reversing the decline of the 1990s and gradually reviving film
production. The work of Russian film directors, such as Alexander
Sokurov, Kira Muratova, Nikita Mikhalkov, and Sergei Bodrov, has won
international acclaim. |
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Copyrighted material
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