Australian cinema chain Hoyts has come under fire from Melbourne’s Ukrainian community for hosting a Russian film festival that begins on Friday.
Tatiana Zachariak, chair of the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria, questioned who was behind the festival and whether it was wartime propaganda.
Promotional material features the logos of Roskino, a Russian state-owned organisation which represents Russian film-makers, and the Russian Ministry of Culture. A trailer suggests the event will show “Russia isn’t so far away”.
Zachariak said the Ukrainian community considered the festival an “insult” and an “insensitive action based on spurious motives”.
“The Ukrainian community is appalled that Hoyts has chosen, in the middle of the war and atrocities being waged on the Ukrainian nation, to have a Russian film festival,” she said.
“Russia is using ‘culture’, in inverted commas, to push propaganda as it has done for many years with things like the Moscow Circus, the Russian ballet and the Red Army choir – and now the Russian film festival.”
“This is laughable, when internationally [Russia] is being recognised as a state sponsor of terrorism that is using terrorism to commit genocide against the Ukrainian nation.”
Members of the Ukrainian community took to social media to express their anger at the festival as an exercise in “soft power” during the ongoing invasion.
Hoyts said in a statement that the company had no involvement with the festival beyond leasing out a cinema to a “privately run” company.
“We are not associated with this in any other way,” it said.
The organisation behind the event is Asia Media Capital, a start-up incubator that supports the work of Asian creative industries.
Zo Liang, a co-founder of Asian Media Capital, said members of the organisation worked on animations for the two children’s films. The festival was organised primarily for the Asian community as an end-of-year holiday event in order to promote the work of the animators.
Liang said he received no funding from Roskino or the Russian ministry of culture and had personally paid to lease the cinema. He said free tickets would be given to members of the Asian community, who he expected to make up most of the audience.
But Liang said he had to get permission from Roskino and the Russian ministry of culture to screen the films, as they hold the licence.
“I understand that it is a bit sensitive,” Liang said. “They put the condition that we had to put the logo on there promoting it.
“I agreed on condition that we are peaceful. We do not promote any politics. We don’t want to anger any party. We want to communicate a peaceful message. We don’t support any war.
“We picked the films we are working with as we had a relationship with the producer or director.”
Marketing copy for the event says “Australian cinephiles” will be able to watch to the “latest blockbuster” hits.
Five films have been scheduled to screen over three days at Hoyts Melbourne Central, including two animated children’s films and three feature films.
The feature films include a drama involving a woman who miraculously survives an air collision, a fantasy film involving forbidden love and a comedy about a thirtysomething-year-old whose life is falling apart and who enters a competition for high school students to win over a million rubles.
Of the two children’s films, one is a mystery based on the series Secrets of Honey Hills featuring a genius owl detective, and the other is about “fixies”, tiny humanoid creatures that live inside appliances and look after them.
In 2020 Roskino partnered with global streaming service Hyvio to run a Russian film festival in Australia.
