Russia Film Freeze

An article on Yahoo today reports that Russia's film industry has gone into a deep freeze.

About 100 Russian film projects have been canceled or suspended since the fall, when the film industry experienced the impact of the economic crisis, according to the Russian film industry's trade journal, Byulleten kinoprokatchuika. Earlier this year, Mosfilm, the country's largest studio complex, said it had no films being shot in its studios.

"It is true that (Russian buyers) are renegotiating deals and even canceling them. It is very difficult indeed to get money out of that territory," a spokesperson for London-based sales and finance house Hanway Films said recently.

News is even worse on the local production front. As the global financial downturn has worsened, Russian distributors increasingly have turned their focus toward Hollywood blockbusters, leaving homegrown films and even foreign independent features on the outside looking in.