Cannes Festival Divided Over Dealmaking in Russia, Some Reluctant to Give Up ‘Financially Lucrative’ Market
variety.comChristopher Vourlias With a Ukrainian cinema union issuing a strident call on Thursday for participants of the Cannes Film Market to halt all business with Russia rather than support “terrorism,” industry professionals are again weighing the moral cost of working in the country against the financial upside of releasing films in the lucrative Russian market.
Many U.S. and foreign companies quietly continued to do business with the pariah state after the Ukraine invasion or resumed the dealmaking that was put on pause once the war began.
Honoring contracts that were signed before fighting commenced or working through third-party distributors in other jurisdictions, they’ve ensured that a steady stream of foreign content — including Lionsgate’s “John Wick: Chapter 4” and A24’s Oscar-winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — continues to reach Russian movie theaters.
But while those often circuitous, sometimes murky, arrangements are perfectly legal if sanctioned entities aren’t involved, the statement from the Ukrainian League of Cinemas sought to define the situation in more concrete terms. “Continuing to do business in Russia means supporting the Russian terrorist state with taxes,” the statement read. “These taxes are then turned into weapons with which peaceful Ukrainian cities are destroyed, and our friends and colleagues are killed and maimed.” That message resonates with many marketgoers.
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