Russia builds for lucrative future

Although Moscow's famous Mosfilm Studios -- a warren of soundstages housing more than a dozen independent companies -- with a sizable backlot conveniently situated in the heart of the Russian capital's Sparrow Hills region, continues to be the major destination for most domestic studio work, new space is gradually being added elsewhere.

Latest announcements include industrial and media giant AFT Sistema's $150 million joint venture with Russian World Studio (RWS), which will bring production facilities near Russia's Black Sea coast and St. Petersburg on the Baltic gulf under one corporate roof.

The joint venture, in which Sistema takes a 51% controlling stake, positions the companies as a major player in a market where demand is stronger every year. Sistema vice president Anton Abugov predicts the new outfit will generate revenues of between $200 million and $300 million annually.

RWS, a leading producer of films and TV series such as Russian costume drama "Poor Anastasia," brings a studio complex in Anapa, in the Krasnodar region, boasting 13 soundstages with a total floor space of 18,000 square meters (193,750 square feet) and a 73-hectare (180-acre) backlot, to the venture.

Sistema, which is the mother company for international English-language production shingle Thema Prods., brings in the new Thema Studios, under construction in St. Petersburg.

More ambitious plans are also afoot in what some are calling the Hollywood of the East.

A $1.4 billion media park is planned in southern Moscow as part of a massive, ambitious, Kazakh-backed new town development near the city's rapidly expanding southern airport, Domodedovo.

Kazakh developer and banker Mukhtar Ablyazov is planning the 345-acre production center as the key feature of a $15 billion "Eurasia City" development, slated to break ground in the next two years.

Situated close to an airport that serves both popular Russian filmmaking locations in the south and Ukraine's Crimea region, plus international destinations that include London, the media park is being touted as the answer to Moscow's facilities squeeze.

In a sign of the increasing competition to grab market share, Konstantin Ernst, chief of leading pubcaster First Channel (which produced "Night Watch"), swiftly issued a statement after the March Eurasia City announcement -- which erroneously included First Channel as a backer -- insisting the network would soon be investing in a new 30-story television production center and looking at other investments in soundstage construction close to Domodedova, separately from the Eurasia City project.

Media City, a city center production facility developed by leading television drama specialists Amedia that opened its doors in a refurbished ball-bearing factory in 2003, boasts nine soundstages of between 6,500 square feet and 8,600 square feet and a further four under construction. The company also plans to add capacity in southern Moscow.

The need for more space is a common theme when talking to Moscow-based producers.

"More capacity is definitely needed -- that is why in Moscow you can find a number of old factories remodeled as production studios. There are five or six companies providing these services, but not all are of a very high level, and (they) still cost a lot of money," says Alexander Rodnyansky, head of Russian television entertainment network CTC and producer of "Inhabited Island," with a budget of $40 million, the country's most expensive movie.

Rodnyansky's solution to the space crisis has been to acquire a couple of local independent production houses and set about developing his own facilities.

The growth of facilities does not seem to herald any promotion of Russia for foreign co-productions anytime soon.

"Inhabited Island" -- a lavish sci-fi fantasy based on a cult Soviet-era novel by the Strugatsky brothers that has elements of "Blader Runner," "The Matrix" and "Children of Men" -- shot on locations in the Crimea and on stages at Mosfilm, Rodnyansky says.

But such was the huge cost and relative lack of comfort -- there are not many five-star hotels in the Crimea, Rodnyansky wryly remarks -- that future productions he drives may well shoot in Europe.

"Mosfilm is good but expensive," Rodnyansky says, adding that he had noted Central Partnership's successful fantasy film "Wolfhound" shot in Slovakia and First Channel's "The Irony of Fate: Continuation" used Prague's Barrandov for studio work.