Popularity Factors of Domestic Films: Gender Characteristics and State Support Measures

The work examines factors related to cinema attendance, and what state support and issues of gender equality of filmmakers and film characters are among them. The 16-year period of the Russian film market development is considered (2004-2019). The film genres are clustered in the country and era context. The factors of film success in CIS distribution, including genres and direct financial state support, are established. The effectiveness of regulatory methods of state support in Russia after 2015 was assessed. The results showed that only state regulation concerning the age ratings softening for domestic films is effective. From the point of view of gender analysis, for the first-time data are presented on the key filmmakers of Russian films produced in 2008-2019 (about 1300 films), indicating the dominance of men among producers, screenwriters and directors. A large corpus of films has been prepared with analysis of the characters gender representation: 243 films have Bechdel-Wallace test results and network analysis of characters, demonstrating a predominantly stereotyped representation of heroines and their rare central position in the plot. The developed variation of the Bechdel-Wallace test makes it possible to more accurately mark the involvement of the heroines in communication with each other on non-stereotypical topics. Regression analysis showed that the centrality and non-stereotyping of the heroines of the film are associated with the proportion of women among filmmakers’ team. And the modeled relationship between the film's attendance and indicators of gender bias towards heroines suggests that the audience does not perceive strong heroines negatively or positively - attendance is not related to the nature of the portrayal of women on the screen. According to the global trends, after 2015, Russian films with strong central heroines have become more popular in the CIS distribution.