Позитивные изменения. Том 3, № 2 (2023). Positive changes. Volume 3, Issue 2 (2023)
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It is becoming less and less appropriate to limit the evaluation of the effectiveness of contemporary domestic cinematography to economic and investment terms alone, or to argue that supporting filmmaking is a basic and traditional responsibility of the state. The expert community is increasingly talking about the overdue need to introduce a system of substantive, qualitative assessments of films shot in the country, to study the social effects, the strength of the potential and actual social impact – which is often more revealing than the amount of box office receipts or the number of viewers who saw the picture. Moreover, the talk today is not so much about the immediate social effects (for example, significant changes in the life of a particular target audience), but about the impact in general – that is, the global social impact on the society in terms of changes in the public perceptions, attitudes, and behavior.
With the growing awareness of the importance of impact assessment in the film industry, the examples of positioning with a focus on social impact are becoming increasingly common – the Lampa Impact Film Festival, special nominations at professional festivals, competitions and awards, such as Media Brand and Advertising of the Future, and numerous studies and articles devoted to this issue. For example, the 2022 Social Effects of Cinema study [17] conducted by The Center for Social Projects “Platforma” together with the National Media Group (NMG). So far, unfortunately, the study only captures a snapshot of the situation, but does not tell what exactly needs to be done to implement the assessment; however, the authors have already announced its planned expansion, continuing to research the social impact of cinematography and updating the assessment methodology of social effects. According to the information available to us, the updated study will be presented to the expert community at the next St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June and at Russian Creative Week in Moscow in July.
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Center for Social Projects “Platforma”. (2022). Social Effects of the Cinema. Retrieved from:socialenye-effekty-kino.pdf. (accessed: 17.05.2023).
The relevance of “measuring” the viewers’ perception of the information being broadcast is also discussed by opinion leaders. For example, Artem Metelev, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Youth Policy and Chairman of the Association of Volunteer Centers, suggested that the Internet Development Institute (IDI) include qualitative attributes, namely social impact assessment, in the project evaluation criteria. “After all, the most important thing in films or TV series, especially those funded by the state, is the impact on a person’s worldview, beliefs and further life. <…> The main thing should be the meanings,” Artem Metelev writes in his Telegram channel. As a result of this initiative, a new indicator, “Social Effect of Project Implementation,” with a weight of 15 %, was added to the IDI tender evaluation system in 2023.
Moreover, the concern about expanding the film production evaluation system has been raised at the highest level. In 2021, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, following a meeting of the Government Council for the Development of National Cinematography, instructed the Ministry of Culture, together with the Cinema Fund and the professional community to finalize the National Cinematography Development Concept until 2030, including the need to establish indicators of its effectiveness [18] .
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Russian Government. (2021). On the resolutions of the meeting with the members of the Government Council for the Development of National Cinematography. Retrieved from:(accessed: 17.05.2023).
“The government, of course, will be ready to provide financial, administrative and legal support. But as soon as the state subsidy has been received, the producer works in a market environment. <…> And the result should be not in how much money was used, but in the box office and an assessment of the impact the film had on the society. <…> Let’s have a rating for this, let’s see. Because I’m sure there are movies that won’t bring any dividends or revenue, but can have such a great impact on people that we will all heartily support it. And the state will support it,” Mishustin said.
During the meeting, Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova emphasized that “the Ministry’s task is to develop the art of cinema. The Cinema Fund, on the other hand, is focused on supporting big-budget entertainment projects. In this regard, the department is interested in debut films, auteur cinema, social impact films, children’s cinema, documentary and popular science films and auteur animation.”
The need to develop qualitative assessment methods to evaluate the content created, the fact that the film industry is not only about numbers and money, but also about producing behavioral experience and value systems, was emphasized at the meeting by Fedor Sosnov, the Russian Cinema Fund’s Executive Director, Leonid Vereshchagin, General Director of Nikita Mikhalkov’s TriTe Studio, and Konstantin Ernst, General Director of Channel One Russia [19] .
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The full transcript of the meeting is available on the Russian Government’s website: http://government.ru/news/44141/.
The relevance of social impact of a film as its success criteria is receiving more and more attention, and everyone seems to be coming to realization that social impact is just as important as the quantitative indicators. There is a clear understanding that this assessment format is becoming a trend to focus on.
We talked to key experts in film production about the prospects for the development of impact assessment in the domestic film market.
Olga Zhukova, Executive Director of the Association of Film and Television Producers (APKiT), believes it is difficult to predict at the script stage, what the impact of a film project on the audience will be like. Likewise, you can predict your box office receipts, but this forecast will not necessarily be close to the actual performance in the theaters. “I’m all for impact assessment,” Olga Zhukova agrees, “but the right tools must be chosen for it. In my opinion, it is not enough to take the entire target audience of a film project and assume that 20 % of these people will definitely be affected, in terms of change of attitudes or change of behavior patterns.” In her opinion, assessment will only be objective if there is a baseline measurement of audience with the right sampling. Moreover, it is important to perform social impact assessment in specific groups – a qualitative study with a baseline measurement, a display of some content, and then a discussion and a follow-up measurement – perhaps not right away, but after some time.
The expert explains: “This can be done by mixed-method research (qualitative and quantitative): determine which pictures are considered to be socially significant by the experts, take a sampling of the target audience and show them the film. This will give a good understanding the effect produced. The Russian film market certainly looks promising, and the need for impact assessment is certainly there, so it is important to measure the baseline attitudes in the society towards certain social phenomena.”
“The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, in addition to the traditional areas, has also launched a competition to support social impact films quite some time ago. At the same time, you cannot find a definition of this type of films in any legal documents, and having a clear understanding of the terms is vital, given the situation,” says Galina Sytsko, producer, head of the Social Programs Department of the Roscongress Foundation, lecturer at Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), and former Deputy Director of the Department of Cinema and Digital Development of the Ministry of Culture.