In the mid-1990s, MosFilm - Russia's biggest movie studio - was turning
out less than 10 films a year, about equal to the number of movie
screens in all of Moscow (which had a population over 20 million).
Today, there are multiplexes all over the city, MosFilm expects to
produce over 150 TV shows and movies this year, and the Russian film industry is
booming. A pair of recent films have been the high-profile face of the
turnaround: Night Watch, a sci-fi/horror extravaganza, and Company 9, a
sobering fictional look at the Soviet Union's disastrous 10 year war in
Afghanistan.The week it opened, Company 9 made $9 million, breaking all of Russia's box office records. Given that the film addresses an embarrassing, muddled military venture without any of the previous-generation's "imposed patriotism or sentimentalization," this is an impressive achievement indeed.
