Private office

Movie Research Company has provided the results of the research «Russian Animated Films». The company has calculated the box office earnings of the animated films in the russian film distribution.

According to the research, the gross box office earnings make 6,03 billion rubles and have shown a rise by 66,8%. Foreign animated films gathered 5,3 billion rubles, domestic — the record 721,9 million rubles. The previous record was set in 2007, with the sum of 297,4 million rubles.

The most commercially successful cartoon of the previous year was «Three Bogatyrs and a Shamakhan Tzarina» by «Melnitsa» Studio and CTB Company. Its box office earnings made 18,9 million dollars. The previous, third part of the bogatyr saga «Ilya Muromets and Solovey Razboynik» was also a success — 9,7 million dollars in 2007. Though, our bogatyrs couldn't beat the cartoon «Shrek Forever After», which earned in Russia 51,4 million dollars.

According to Movie Research opinion, the Ministry of Culture must donate minimum 130 million rubles for short projects, and 300 millions — the Cinema Fund for feature-length animation. These donations allow to create 430 minutes of short films and four feature-length works.

The general director of Movie Research Oleg Ivanov believes, that cartoon production can be economically profitable. To achieve this goal the government should develop a systematic strategy and support the animators. Unfortunately, last year the Ministry of Culture allocated 200 million rubles for animation industry in comparison with 300 millions in 2009.