Shunned by the West, Russian movies find fans in China, India and Global South
- With major film festivals shutting their doors, Moscow’s cultural arm Roskino is taking Russian works to China, India, Brazil and beyond
- ‘Hardly surprising’ that nationalist Chinese audiences feel a sense of solidarity with Russians faced with comparable Western sanctions, analyst says.
As many as 2 million viewers logged in over three weeks when Moscow’s cultural arm Roskino teamed up with Chinese streaming giant Youku to present an online film festival last month.
It was still less than half the numbers for the 2022 edition of the festival, staged in collaboration with Tencent Video, which drew 5 million viewers.
Roskino is the state body representing Russia’s audiovisual content industry overseas. Together with Alibaba-owned Youku, it offered Chinese users of the platform a selection of 12 Russian movies for free, with the 2017 sci-fi hit Attraction alone drawing 80,000 viewers. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
It was Roskino’s second event in China this year, after in-person participation in the 13th Beijing International Film Festival in April, with more to follow.
Zhang Chi, a postdoctoral researcher in international relations at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, said China had a “palpable affinity” towards Russia which fosters appreciation for a diverse array of Russian cultural products, such as art, film, music and literature.