At the World Youth Festival, Experts Explained What Viewers Expect from TV Series and Movies

The Russian film and TV series industry in 2024 will rely on a number of cultural trends dominating in society, including taking into account and analyzing the interests of young people, film adaptations of popular literary works and a special demand for “magic” and national self-identification. Participants in the panel discussion “Trends in the Multinational Film Industry” spoke about this at the World Youth Festival in Sirius. What will be in the top 2024? ”, held as part of the Media Stream, organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, Rosatom State Corporation and ANO Dialog.

Speaking about the demands of young people for domestic audiovisual products, the Director General of ANO Dialog and ANO "Dialog Regiony" Vladimir Tabak presented the results of a survey by the sociological agency "Weber", in which several thousand young people aged 18 took part -34 years from all over Russia.

“We learned that today TV series have become an integral part of life for almost half of young people in Russia: for example, 45% of them love TV series and watch them once a week or more often, and 59% generally watch domestic TV series. At the same time, 95% of respondents admitted that they prefer to watch foreign TV series, and this is a certain challenge,”  said Vladimir Tabak.

Separately, the sociological agency Weber highlighted a number of positive trends in watching Russian TV series. According to Vladimir Tabak, 51% of those young people who are the audience for domestic serial films said that the quality of production has improved over the past two years. Most often, they noted progress in the quality of shooting and visuals (69%), work on stories and their development (62%), as well as in acting (50%). The top 3 genres, which, according to viewers aged 18-34, are the best in the country, were headed by war films (27%), crime (25%) and comedies (25%).

The Director General of the Internet Development Institute Alexey Goreslavsky drew attention to the multiple increase in the quality of acting in Russian TV series and films: “The quality of the picture is achieved by working on the technological process and budgets, and acting cannot be compensated money. Over the past few years, we have seen a new generation of Russian artists who are starring in new sensational projects and for whom this is the first or second role in their careers, and this is very cool.” Separately, the media manager highlighted the request from the Russian audience for “family viewing” at the movies and the focus on such series and films that support the “growth of national self-identification.”

The results of the study were also commented on by Deputy General Producer, Head of the Children's and Youth Film Department of the Okko online cinema Svetlana Sonina, who noted the colossal pace of development of the Russian “serial production”: “This is unprecedented growth, which has never happened anywhere in the world. And in this growth, licensed platforms played a key role, which began to invest more money on advertising and marketing than producers of serial shows for TV channels. At the same time, today’s domestic TV series themselves have become great art.”

Writer and publicist Alexander Tsypkin, in turn, emphasized that Russian film production, with much less money than Hollywood films, “manages to produce products of the same high quality”.

“The viewer doesn’t care what kind of movie he watches – foreign or Russian. He wants to have fun and get an emotion for the money he gives. And we see how today Russian cinema successfully copes with this, sometimes we compete with Western films at the level of blockbusters - the success of the film “Silver Skates” is an example of this,” said Alexander Tsypkin.

A separate trend in the Russian film and TV series industry, according to Alexander Tsypkin, today is the adaptation of literary works, when filmmakers “turn to books that do not have such a large circulation, but where cool ideas are embedded”. Talents for the industry, according to the writer, should be looked for in books “not yet published.”

Speaking about who determines trends in the industry today and will dictate them in the future, experts’ opinions differed. According to Vladimir Tabak, the producers will act as trendsetters, and according to Alexander Tsypkin - the viewers themselves. Svetlana Sonina noted the role of the request “for magic and our cultural code” in the formation of trends, in Alexey Goreslavsky revealed the secret of all producers: “ Formulate a future trend yourself, make a movie about it and then declare it a trend.”

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The World Youth Festival is taking place at the Sirius Federal Territory from March 1 to 7, 2024, as per the decree issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at fostering international youth cooperation.

The Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh) is the organizer of the World Youth Festival, with the World Youth Festival Directorate serving as the operator for the WYF 2024.

Media Stream is one of the most modern platforms of the World Youth Festival, which brought together experienced content makers and novice creators from all over the world for a dialogue about the future of the media industry. Here, leading producers and screenwriters, popular bloggers and journalists will talk about the challenges and prospects of media communications, and each participant will find a place for self-expression.

The program of lectures and practical classes was formed by key players in the domestic media industry. The intellectual partners are VK, ANO Dialog, RT, K2 Agency, JSC Gazprom-Media Holding.

Organizers of Media Stream: Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, Rosatom State Corporation, UP Bureau.