Despite vocal
protests from around the world, the For quite some time now, they've been packing up the
boxes at This came despite a string of street protests,
covered regularly in the media, by the museum's support organization, the
Friends of Muzei Kino. Consisting of viewers from
the venue, the group earned a high profile during both the 2004 and 2005
Moscow International Film Festivals. Its last demonstration, held in early November
outside Dom Kino, the headquarters of the Russian Filmmakers' International support over the years has been no
less vocal, coming from both institutions – most significantly, the
international film critics' association FIPRESCI – and from individuals, such
as director Quentin Tarantino. The "Pulp Fiction" director made a
special visit to the museum in June 2004 when he was in the Russian capital
for the Moscow International Film Festival. Written support from cinema
notables all over the world continued to follow. On that front, it seems a bitter irony that the
museum's founding director, film scholar Naum Kleiman, was invited to
receive the honorary Order of the Rising Sun at the Japanese Embassy on
Thursday – the day after the museum held a final, 24-hour round of screenings
to mark the closure of its four exhibition halls. Similarly, the wide array of international film festival projects that have
run at the venue over the years attest to its worldwide prominence. "Just recently, in The conflict behind the museum's closure dates back
more than a decade, and has been debated in various Political developments in the 1990s led to
acrimonious disputes on all fronts, including one between Nikita Mikhalkov, who heads the Russian Filmmakers' But it was on the property front that the issue
became – literally – bloody. As the rest of the Kinocenter
building gradually passed into private hands, its spaces were adapted to
commercial use. Today, in addition to a movie theater, it houses a plethora
of other entertainment options, from restaurants and nightclubs to striptease
joints. In an interview several years ago, Kleiman
recalled that as many as nine murders had taken place in connection with turf
wars over the property – and that he didn't want to become the 10th victim. Ultimately, the museum found itself facing rents
that threatened to rule it out of existence, despite Kleiman's
assertion that it was occupying the space specifically designated for it when
the building was constructed. Access conditions changed as well, with entry
to the premises limited to one barely visible side door and a single, slow
and not always functioning elevator. Speaking at a meeting in the museum last summer, Kleiman described the whole history as "one mistake
after another" on the part of the Russian Filmmakers' The final step came when the Russian Filmmakers' FIPRESCI's then-president,
Klaus Eder, was forthright on possible motives
behind the deal. "We have now to touch the domain where cultural and
commercial interests overlap and contradict each other," he wrote in an
open letter to Mikhalkov. Sources in the Russian
film world have suggested that many of the parties involved in the Kinocenter deal have vested financial interests in its
outcome. Just over a decade ago, in 1994, Mikhalkov
presented the first press screening of his subsequent Oscar-winner,
"Burnt by the Sun," in one of the museum's
halls -- but he seems to have long since forgotten the importance of the
location. Others, however, have not. One of the first comments
from director Andrei Zvyagintsev after he received
his Golden Lion award at the 2003 Venice Film Festival for "The
Return" was to recognize Muzei Kino as a venue
that had allowed him to educate himself in the history of world cinema. Other
members of In addition to its varied retrospectives, the museum
also brought contemporary art-house films to viewers for a democratic price.
According to Sam Klebanov, head of art-house
distribution company Kino Bez Granits,
it was a venue that might not have led on box office income but dominated in
terms of the refined taste and critical sensibility of its audiences. At least one of the museum's offerings appears to be
safe. The museum's permanent collection, consisting of hundreds of thousands of
items collected in the years since it opened in 1989, has been guaranteed a
home by the Mosfilm movie studio. As Soviet-era
institutions threw away their archives, Muzei Kino
managed to collect what it could, aided by private donations. These items
include sketches for Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film
"Solaris" and personal mementos from the director's apartment, such
as his record collection. Outside Kleiman's office
long stood a bulky wooden table and set of chairs crafted by classic Soviet
director Mikhail Romm, taken from the director's
dacha. A certificate signed by Romm's former pupils
from the VGIK film institute, who spent many days there, attested to its
provenance. Though the collection isn't being broken up, access
to it will certainly be limited, as will the potential to mount any kind of
rotating exhibition. But it's the loss of the screening rooms, named in honor
of, among others, Sergei Eisenstein, Marlene
Dietrich and Charlie Chaplin -- whose "The Great Dictator" was the
first film to be shown at the venue -- that is being most protested.
Likewise, the fate of the museum's collection of original film prints,
donated by the likes of classic Indian director Satyajit
Ray, after whom another hall was named, remains uncertain. Limited and occasional screenings in a number of
other His hope remains that construction of a new,
dedicated facility, with screening rooms and exhibition space in one
location, might be included on the list of federal cultural projects for the
period of 2006 to 2010, and such a project could be realized as early as 2008
– the year that will mark the centennial of film in If it continues to be backed by real public support,
such plans may one day reach reality, though official support has so far been
conspicuous by its absence. For now, the museum is packing up some of its
unique projection equipment – including |