The covid film of the cinema of the Nizhny Novgorod region on Friday, June 18, sent a letter to the governor Gleb Nikitin and the Minister of Culture of the region Oleg Berkovich with a request to suspend their work.

Covid film

The cinemas of the Nizhny Novgorod region on Friday, June 18, sent a letter to the governor Gleb Nikitin and the Minister of Culture of the region Oleg Berkovich with a request to suspend their work. RBC got acquainted with a copy of the letter, which was signed by seven general directors on behalf of 18 establishments (including six cinemas of the Graz Empire, four – Lumen, Sinema Park, Russia, Romanov Cinema in Nizhny Novgorod, “ Royal in Dzerzhinsk). The appeal was confirmed by one of its authors – the owner of the Lumen cinema network Pavel Ponikarovsky.

Their owners asked to close the cinemas due to new additions made on June 16, 2021 to the decree of the Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region of March 13, 2020. The innovations were prescribed to be allowed for mass events, including cinemas, only those visitors who have the so-called covid passport-a certificate of preventive vaccination from Covid-19 or a negative result of a laboratory study for coronavirus by the PCR method (period of not more than three days).

RBC sent a request to the press service of the government of the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Cinemas are already fulfilling a number of requirements that reduce their income: they sell no more than 60% of tickets from the total capacity of the hall, provide a distance of 1.5 m between spectators according to the rules of Rospotrebnadzor, resemble the authors of the letter. The new requirement will lead to the absence of visitors – their number will decrease by 100%, cinema owners are sure. Vaccination in the country is slow, so people who will require a vaccination certificate to visit the cinema will simply conduct their leisure in another way and refuse to visit cinemas, the authors of the letter explain. According to them, film -rolling activities are not the field of services for which everyone will begin to be massively vaccinated. In an attempt to impose mass vaccination in this way to the population, you can kill the film industry as such, the owners of cinemas warn.

How vaccination takes place in Russia

According to the latter officially voiced data on June 2, about 18 million Russians were vaccinated with the first component of the coronavirus vaccine. In the regions of Russia, various restrictions are introduced to increase the number of vaccinated: in Moscow, the chief sanitary doctor Elena Andreeva on June 16 ordered 60% of catering officers, trade, services, theaters and museums, and other spheres. Similar measures were introduced in the suburbs.

Business representatives agreed with the need for vaccination to overcome the pandemic, but explained that the Russians did not trust domestic manufacturers vaccines and would like to be able to get used to a foreign vaccine.

Currently, four vaccines from coronavirus infection are registered in Russia – vector satellite V from the center named after Gamaley, peptide epivaccoron from the Center center, based on the inactivated virus Covivak from the center of Chumakov and satellite Light.

For cinemas, the breakdown point of each film reaches when it collects 12 people on average at one session, Praikarovsky explained earlier. But in order for the work of the cinema to pay off as a whole, its fees should be 75% of the last year’s office, the owner of the Lumen network added. The revenue of all cinemas of the Nizhny Novgorod region in May 2021 amounted to 53.9 million rubles, a year earlier – 10.4 thousand rubles. (Then the cinemas were closed almost throughout Russia), in May 2019-80.6 million rubles.

Throughout Russia, the revenue of cinemas in May 2021, 2020 and 2019 was 3.4 billion rubles, 916 thousand rubles. and 5 billion rubles. Accordingly, it follows from the data of the database of the State Foundation of Cinema.

The introduction of new measures to combat coronavirus indicates that all past restrictions were ineffective, but cinemas are still obliged to continue to use them, the authors of the letter pay attention. In their opinion, a priori any of the documents-a certificate of vaccination or the absence of Covid-19-confirms that such a visitor is not sick with coronavirus, which means that he does not need to observe a distance with other spectators.

The last year, already taking into account the updated Rules of Rospotrebnadzor, all cinemas of the Nizhny Novgorod region work at a loss, the authors of the letter say. New requirements actually force cinemas to stop their activities, the authors of the letter state.

Block of videos of recommendations

If the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region instructs to suspend the work of cinemas, this will make it possible to send employees to the forced simple and negotiate with the lessor to reduce or cancel the rent for the closing period, the owners of cinemas explain their initiative.

The restrictions similar to Nizhny Novgorod, are introduced in Bashkiria to visit spectacular events. Since June 22, in this region, to visit museums, theaters, cinemas, cultural centers, a certificate of vaccination against Covid-19 or a certificate of the presence of contraindications for vaccination and a negative PCR test on Covid-19 (valid for three days) is required. From June 29, these certificates will also be required to visit catering facilities and beauty salons in Bashkiria.