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GUARDIAN
13.01.2006
DARK NIGHTS IN MOSCOW
Ronald BERGAN
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A Russian film institution
is no longer. Ronald Bergan reports on the death of
Moscow's much-loved Museum of Cinema
There
was not much for cinephiles to celebrate this New
Year's Day in Moscow. The world-renowned Museum of Cinema was closed on January 1,
condemning hundreds of cans of film, stacks of boxes of archive material and
the Dolby sound system given to the museum by Jean-Luc Godard
in 1992, to life in storage.
The
four screening rooms - the Charlie Chaplin, the Sergei
Eisenstein, the Marlene Dietrich and the Satyajit
Ray - are now deserted and silent. Only a short while ago, all four auditoria
were packed every night with enthusiastic young people discovering the
masterpieces of cinema.
These
same young people had, only a few weeks ago, been protesting the closure
outside the Russian Filmmakers Union (FU) headquarters, brandishing placards
with slogans such as «Museums are not for sale!» and «The FU will sell
anything even their souls».
Despite
these demonstrations, as well as appeals from directors such as Godard, Quentin Tarrantino,
Bernardo Bertolluci and Agnes Varda
and a strong petition by the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) - and even ex-German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
got his oar in and voiced his concerns to Russian president Vladimir Putin – the building was sold by the FU, to a property
developer to be turned into a casino and strip club.
«It's
a typical story of post-Communist Russia where property speculation and
financial interests override everything else,» said Naum Kleiman, the inspirational
director of the museum. «We were naive to believe that in such a short time
this country would change for the better. The ghosts of the past are still
very much alive.»
The
startling fact is that the museum was only established in March 1989 after
years of struggle, with exhibition halls, four cinemas and the valuable
archives. It was a dream come true for most Russian cinephiles who had the opportunity to watch the
international «art» films that were banned during the Soviet times and that
found no outlet under the new free enterprise system.
The
museum not only created a new audience but also influenced a whole generation
of young Russian filmmakers, such as Andrei Zvyagintsev,
whose film The Return won the Golden Lion at Venice in 2003.
But
in the final few weeks, filmgoers had to climb five flights of stairs to the
cinemas – the lift was repeatedly out of order – ignoring threats of power
cuts and expulsion by the police.
The
museum had become a hostage of numerous state culture department reforms and
slid to the periphery of the Ministry of Culture's interests. One Ministry
bureaucrat even called the museum «a place for dopeheads
and young punks».
As
a result, Moscow, which boasts that it has more casinos and
nightclubs than Paris, is likely to become the only
European metropolis without a cinematheque. There
is now no place to study the unique archives, exhibit the museum's extensive
poster collection and drawings by Sergei Eisenstein
and Federico Fellini, photographs by famous
cinematographers and photographs taken by prominent directors, nor show the
great collection of films (about 150 were screened per month).
The
Museum of Cinema is now among the homeless of Moscow this winter.
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