The film company Sota Cinema Group headed by the Kyivan producer Oleh Kokhan has been taking an active part in the Ukrainian cinematography for only three years, yet it has an impressing list of achievements. Kokhan has produced the latest films directed by Kira Muratova (Two in One, Melody for a Street-Organ), Roman Balaian (The Chosen One, Birds of Paradise), Otar Iosseliani (Chantrapas), and Krzysztof Zanussi (And a Warm Heart). Serhii Loznytsia’s live-action debut My Joy was selected for the main competition at the Cannes Festival. It earned good reviews both from the audience and Western critics.
Oleh KOKHAN answered The Day’s questions about his approach to cinema, his company’s projects, as well as the present day and future of Ukrainian moviemaking.
How did you come to the filmmaking industry?
“Everything starts from one’s hobbies. As a child I liked to do three kinds of things: play football — I was doing this professionally as a schoolboy, read books and watch films. I have always wanted to get involved in this mystery, when you can move to a different world via a TV screen; this was the primary stage, something subconscious and emotional; later I grew interested in the possibility of self-realization, sharing your attitude to life via art-house movies.”
Did you want to become an actor or film director first?
“I have never been tempted by the actor’s profession. I am interested both in directing and managing. I understood what it means to be involved in these two things right in Stozhary Film Festival. I decided to become part of the mechanism of moviemaking. But I decided to start from the more important thing, taking into consideration the fact that every director ought to find a producer, preferably a successful one.”
Have you studied cinematography?
“I’ve tried to. I tried to enter the VGIK’s first studying course for producers, but when I read through the program, I understood that Quentin Tarantino was right saying that it is better to spend 60,000 dollars for one’s own film and acquire practical experience than waste this money for education. At the time I already had a theoretical base, and that program did not include any marketing — studying of the markets, all in all, there was no one to teach this, because there was no such profession as producer in Soviet times. It is like surgery, unless you touch the inner organs with your own hands, you won’t understand a thing. Therefore I resolved to learn on my own: make films at my own expense, thus acquiring experience.”
Where did you find money for this laborious cause?
“I owned a number of companies, realized as separate businesses in various segments of moviemaking: advertisement and post-production. So I had my own capital, which enabled me to launch movie projects. Second, I was assisted by the state-run Cinematography Agency, which supported many of our projects and I sincerely appreciate this. Hopefully, soon the distributors, channels and other participants of the industry that are funding new films over the world will get involved in this process.”
The love of civil servants is fickle.
“Yet we have cooperated with six ministers; I think we will continue to find enough argumentation.”
What was your first project?
“To test a pen I made a TV series in Moscow, in order to understand how the production process works. And my first big artistic project embracing a whole range of producers’ objectives, to create an event, to provide participation in festivals and distribution, was Kira Muratova’s Two in One.”
Is it easy to make serious and famed directors trust you?
“Maybe for someone it is hard, but for me it is a great pleasure and success to communicate with such people. There are certain psychological nuances, because these are unique personalities of monumental scale. I have gone through an absolutely amazing school, when I communicated with such outstanding masters as Muratova, Balaian, Zanussi and Iosseliani.”
Apparently, you needed a special approach in each case?
“Absolutely. They are different personalities, with different priorities, artistic accents and worldviews. To come to agreement was my major task. And I managed to establish a producer-director dialog each time.”
You support subsidized art-house cinema, which does not pay its way, at least in the short term. What about income? You’re a businessman.
“In our country it is traditional to give more importance to the American model of cinema production, and I will emphasize once again, this is the wrong approach. A cinema producer doesn’t always invest his own money. Rather this is the job of a show business entrepreneur able to get money from different sources. It may come from the state, foundations, TV channels and sponsors. We are involved in the cinema which, as it has been admitted by many people throughout the world, reflects the state of cultural life, the country’s situation on the whole, and takes part in the dialog of nations. The whole world has understood this, even the US has a special subsidy fund for moviemaking as an art. This is not a topic for discussion, rather an axiom. For some reason in our country people keep discussing what kind of cinema we should shoot. If we will only entertain ourselves, we will forget how to think. I doubt if anyone can recall the entertaining periodicals published at the beginning of the century — they very much resemble one-day films: once the screenings are over, everyone forgets about them. But we still have Dostoevsky’s Idiot, Tolstoy’s War and Peace in literature, Fellini’s 8 1/2, Tarkovsky’s Mirror, and Dovzhenko’s Land. The question of what we want and whether we should think about this arises.”
We should think, but earn our living, too.
“We are working in the domain of art-house cinema, which successfully exists both in Europe, and around the world. It is being distributed, it has stable audience. It is much more developed, than in our country, which is caused by numerous movie theaters and general social policy. The films are funded, sell quite well, and people watch them. Besides in Europe, like in France, there are two criteria: festival success and box-office success. The producer earns points according to this system. Once your films gets to the A-class festival, the producer gets a reward for this film or preferences for his future projects. This is the way this mechanism works, and on the European funding market we enjoy a high rating, because not only have our projects taken part in the Venice, Cannes and Rome festivals, they also won. We won 50 awards in four years. On the other hand, already before the Cannes premiere of My Joy we had been contacted by several big European channels who offered us cooperation in other projects by Serhii Loznytsia. And after the Cannes Festival, My Joy was sold to 20 areas in Europe, the US, and Israel. So, the strategy has been proven successful.”
Why is Loznytsia’s film so successful?
“The reason is that it is a real work of art: great, rich in content, dashing, and biting. When I read the first version of the script, I understood that it was talented, made with love, understanding and knowledge of the profession, that it was not simply playing the cinema game, but was a reflection of essence: understanding of art’s organics. Besides, the art-house already has a background in the documentary moviemaking. For me it was a great happiness, as a man and professional, to work on such films. They enrich you, make you develop, give you strength and will to make more projects.”
When you try to get funding, do you have to become an actor? What qualities are needed for this?
“For me the first point to overcome all these complicated barriers is infatuation with the project, when I completely dissolve myself in it. You become as obsessed with the film as its authors are. Then you are able to find optimal solution even in hopeless situations. I breathe with the project, I understand that I cannot but make it, this becomes a need. Of course, you also need to be a professional and work with a team of professionals, know the craft you are involved in.”
Will you support young directors and debutants?
“I have a big data base of graduates and students of the Karpenko-Kary University and other young directors. But just one young company cannot carry everything on its shoulders, the state should get involved. Our market should come to understand that when we don’t reveal new names, we will remain a sort of rolling stone, living with the French, American and Japan world outlook, and not know anything about ourselves. We lack knowledge: about our country, the people living next to us. Pay attention, Loznytsia was the first person in 20 years who tried to ponder the present-day reality in such a way — and what were the reviews! But we don’t know anything about ourselves. As for the debutants, we are working on the film Fuga Mortis by Kyrylo Mikhanovsky. He is a young movie maker, educated in the New York school of moviemaking, and presented his first film Dreams of the Fish at the Cannes Film Festival. The new film is very interesting and ambitious; the shooting is taking place in Cuba, but because of the crisis, it has been halted. Besides, the problem of education hinders a full-fledged work with Ukrainian debutants. Unfortunately, the students schooled at European educational establishments are qualitatively different from ours. This is not a problem of funding, rather of an inefficient education system. We should admit this and start reforming cinema education as a whole branch. For example, in the West they study everything, from the elements of shooting to negotiating skills. We absolutely lack this, let alone the fact that we don’t have any communication playgrounds, where the students could communicate with their senior colleagues and representatives of various professions in the market.”
Will Ukrainian-language films appear on the list of the Sota company?
“Absolutely. At the moment most of script writers, directors and actors are Russians, so the language priority is apparent. We plan to screen the Ukrainian classical works and modern literature, where the creative part will be initially in Ukrainian. And let’s not forget about the freedom of choice every author has. Besides, the market’s realities also impose their conditions. At the moment less than 200 movie theaters are operating in Ukraine: this is a miserable number for such a big country. Where will we show such films? We lack any lobbying program on the part of the government. Everyone is aware of this for long. Channels do not buy our products. Under these conditions the first market you want to enter is Russia: it has money, movie theaters and TV channels. There are objective market conditions. Let’s change them, fund the national cinema in Ukrainian language and the language issue will fade away. Besides, it is not the language of the film that I’m interested in, I will repeat myself, this is a problem of governmental support, rather than language. The authors should think about the language while they are creating the film, and in our country this language has not been mastered to the full. We remain in a very remote province of the moviemaking process: you see this once you become an active player on the world market.”
Can the situation be improved?
“Yes. As any state that has faced this problem, we need to implement a complex reform, because this issue won’t be resolved via funding of only one segment of the market. So, the law ‘On support of cinematography’ has been approved, and, importantly, the Tax Code has been amended. The budget has been adopted — in it spending on moviemaking was essentially raised, to 122 million hryvnias. This is not a panacea, but still it is important, because the budget of 2010 did not allow us to pay for the debts of 2009. Besides, business should get immensely involved in the process. In Russia, in one year banks and corporations spent more money on cinema than Ukraine has spent on culture since independence. We should move to a qualitatively new dimension. In Ukraine, 40-50 million euros should be spent on cinema. A European country with a population of 45 million should produce at minimum 30 films, let alone the need to build 1,000 movie theaters at the least. We should reach this level and then we will see how Ukraine will develop as a movie-making state.”
The distribution of films is another problem. I have noticed that Sota’s films regularly have problems with screenings. Specifically, Loznytsia’s film has not been shown to the broad audience.
“My Joy will be shown in cinemas for sure. The delay has been caused by the crisis. Besides, a French distribution outfit that has bought the rights for My Joy was granted 80,000 euros by a special foundation for making copies, printing and promotion. The German distributor was given 65,000 euros. Every country has foundations that are involved in distribution of films. This is not included in the film’s budget. In our country everything is done, unfortunately, at the producer’s expense. Not all distributors are ready to print the copies and put money into promotion. Movie theaters are commercial companies, for them it is more profitable to show Harry Potter or Avatar than an ambitious film, which makes people think. All the country’s movie theaters that act otherwise can be counted on the fingers of a single hand. In France, which I have mentioned many times already, they have an opposite situation. Paris alone has as many art-house movie theaters as there are ordinary movie theaters in Ukraine. And there are the TV channels which broadcast art-house cinema.”
What production plans do you have?
“At the moment we are working on the international project Football, My Love. We deliberately are going to preserve the association with the films Paris, My Love or New York, My Love. This will be a movie almanac about football. For in 2012 we are hosting the Euro Championship, and 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of our football. Clearly, for me football is not just a game, I used to play junior football, so it is no surprise that I would like to merge two of my passions, cinema and football. When such almanacs appeared, I understood that this was a proper form, as the variegated nature of the game can be shown through the eyes of many people: a coach, the audience, a player, state officials, even a ball or a post. One can show that this is more than a game: this is religion, politics, life. I won’t mention any names right now, as the negotiations are underway, but I can guaranty that five or six celebrities will be involved.
“We are also discussing new films by Kira Muratova, Roman Balaian, Serhii Loznytsia. Besides, there is Fuga Mortis by Kyrylo Mikhanovsky that I have mentioned previously. Besides, though the shooting is taking place in Cuba, in its essence it describes our country in the 1990s. Because now Cuba is experiencing the same thing, the poetic time of socialism is almost over, capitalism is approaching, and you come up with many parallels, via the prism of current events. But in the offing we will make an announcement about a historical film based on the work of a classic of Ukrainian literature. Hopefully, this film will be historic in terms of an audience film, like Ogniem i Mechiem was for Poland in its time, and Mongol for Kazakhstan. This is a great multi-million joint-project: this is the only way to make it successful for the audience. We would like to support the debutants and we are actively preparing for this, but their proposals need further work. On the whole, we are ready to produce five-to-six films a year, and a couple in cooperation.”
How do you imagine your future in 10-15 years? Still working as a producer in an office?
“My profession is attractive because today you may find yourself in Bezuhlivka, rescue the shooting area when the temperature is 26 degrees below zero, and in a week be standing on a stage as an award-winner. The vast amplitude of this profession is very inspiring. Speaking about the future, I want our cinema to become a really efficient branch with a vast number of young talents and big names. I see it not as a dream, rather as a goal once the necessary reforms are carried out, when the phenomenon of Ukrainian cinematography will appear in the European and world context, like the Iranian, Korean, and Romanian cinema did in their time. I believe that we are able to do this, to give a new Ukrainian cinema to the world: new names, new language, and new maturity. Certainly, I would like that there be high-quality commercial projects and worthy audience cinema.”
Do you have any other passions, besides cinema?
“The profession of a producer includes so many skills and new things in itself that I can barely distinguish between work and leisure. I also like football, this is my sports past, I play football from time to time to stay fit; I also actively play chess with my son, this is our family hobby: the whole family plays this game.”
