State backing of non-fiction film

Abstract

The article, based on the authorial analysis of the post-Soviet documentary film, focuses on the state system of organizational and financial support. It is analyzed in comparison with the Soviet practices of thematic planning, its evolution over 20 years, legal inconsistencies of the transition to market relations, which either casts the documentary film back to the predetermined from above object-matters or presupposes the budget division between interested film producers. Many years’ experience in the Expert Council of the Culture Ministry allows the author to give an outward glance on the problem of the insufficient demand of the documentary cinema.