By Vera Gromova
According to Belarusfilm’s Director General, Oleg Silvanovich, in 2012, the national film studio completely shifted to digital technologies, bidding farewell to celluloid film: a symbol of the film studio and all cinematography for many years.
Last year, Belarusfilm Studio acquired two Arri Alexa digital film cameras (now standard among professionals), and modernised Red One cameras and the Baselight multi-format digital itscolour grading system. From 2013, all films produced and released by Belarusfilm will appear in digital format, including on Blu-Ray disc.
“The shift to digital format, with its higher resolution, adds lots of excessive details to film images which need to be mixed. Moreover, film scripts have to be adjusted if they are meant for cinema release,” explains Mr. Silvanovich. Speaking of films released on DVD, he notes that it’s impossible to stop them becoming available for free download online, which presents ‘financial difficulties’.
At present, Belarusfilm enjoys a full cycle of production, releasing up to 15 fiction films, 40 chronicle documentaries and 10 animated films annually, of any complexity. In 2012, it completed work on over 24 documentaries and 9 animated films. Its fiction films included Hunting the Gauleiter (directed by Oleg Bazilov), In the Fog (Sergey Loznitsa), Dance of Death (Igor Chetverikov), The Role (Konstantin Lopushansky) Oh, ma-moch-ki!.. (Ivan Pavlov), Stealing Belmondo (Nikolay Knyazev) and Smersh (Alexander Daruga and Eduard Palmov).
