MOSCOW, September 22 Director and producer Fyodor Popov, in a conversation with, commented on the information about the cessation of the activities of the Russian Oscar Committee against the backdrop of the suspension of its work.
According to Popov, who is a member of the committee, the decision to terminate the body’s activities “was not officially made.”
“»No, there was no decision, there was simply no movement, last year there was no gathering, this year, it seems, there are no plans to gather. But, in fact, this is easy to explain. No, no, nothing official «, Popov commented.
The director noted that he cannot assume that any nominated Russian film has a chance of even being considered, let alone winning.
“»Now this confrontation is ideological, it is taking on some other forms, more acute, so it would be strange to pretend that nothing is happening, to nominate as before, to get together and nominate films for the Oscars. This was would be some kind of absurdity, in my opinion,” he added.
The Russian Oscar Committee was created to nominate Russian films as candidates for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
In the USSR, a commission for selecting films for the Oscar existed under the Union of Cinematographers .
In post-Soviet times, the commission under the leadership of director Elem Klimov continued to operate under the Union of Cinematographers of Russia.
Among the films nominated from Russia in those years, Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Urga” (1992) was among the Oscar nominees ), “Prisoner of the Caucasus” by Sergei Bodrov (1996) and “The Thief” by Pavel Chukhrai (1998).
Since 2002, after the creation of the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Russia, the secretariat of the Union has been responsible for selecting Russian films for the Oscars filmmakers under the leadership of Nikita Mikhalkov transferred to the Academy.