The Ukrainian Film Academy, the membership body comprised of film professionals and cultural figures from across the country, has released a petition calling for an international boycott of Russian cinema.
In a statement, the organization said that despite governments around the world imposing sanctions on Russia, the country remains active in the cultural field.
“Several films made by Russia are regularly admitted to the programs of most world film festivals, and significant resources are spent on their promotion. The result of this activity is not only the spread of propaganda messages and distorted facts. It also boosts the loyalty of Russian culture – the culture of the aggressor state, which unleashed unjustified and unprovoked war in central Europe,” it read.
The Academy called on festivals not to allow Russian films in their programs, for producers to terminate business with the Russian Federation, including anything that contributed taxes to the Russian government, and for distributors to draw attention to the fact that any films released in Russian territory could now be “illegally distributed to the legal territory of Ukraine”.
Specifically, the letter asks the Council of Europe to exclude Russia from funding body Eurimages as well as the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-Production, and for the International Federation of Film Producers Associations to deprive the Moscow International Film Festival of accreditation.
Finally, it asks the European Audiovisual Production association аnd the European Federation for Commercial Film Producers to cease cooperation with “audiovisual producers who support aggression against Ukraine”.
The missive was sent out by the press office of the Ukrainian State Film Agency from the embattled Kyiv. Read about the petition on change.org here.