Roskino

Roskino or Federal Agency on Culture and Cinematography (Russian: Федеральное агентство по культуре и кинематографии (Роскино)) is the state-owned film promotion agency of the Russian Federation.

Sovkino was created in 1924 to promote Russian film productions abroad.[1] It became Sovexportfilm in 1945, and Roskino in 2012.

Since the Soviet era, Roskino held the distribution rights of Poland-produced movies. 200 Polish movies are still commercially distributed by Roskino, which doesn't share revenues with the Polish Film Institute. In this reciprocal deal, the Polish Film Institute is a non-profit association that is not allowed to exploit of the +1000 Russian films it holds the distribution rights for.[2]

On September 30, 1992, the State Committee of Russian Federation for Cinematography was created, which was called "Roskomkino" (Роскомкино). By a decree of August 14, 1996 it was made from "State Committee" into the "Committee" (Roskino, Russian: Роскино). It was modeled on the Soviet Goskino. Sovexportfilm was officially abolished by President on May 12, 2008, with its functions handed over to the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.[3]

Since 2008, Roskino's Russian pavilion has been a regular member of the Cannes Film Festival.[4][5] In 2012, Roskino opened a promotion office in Los Angeles.[6] In 2014, Roskino and CTC Media signed a distribution deal with Hulu[7] and Roskino opened an office in the UK.[8] In February 2020, Evgenia Markova was named CEO of Roskino, replacing Catherine Mtsitouridze who had served for nine consecutive years.[9] In May 2020, Roskino introduced its first digital distribution platform to promote 300 Russian projects (films, series, animations, and documentaries).[10]