5 thousand people boycott films in Russian

Five thousand people have now joined the initiative “Cinema – translation” which is aimed at boycotting films in the cinema shown in Russian. The coordinator of the civic initiative “Cinema – translation”, Anatoly Bondarenko, announced this on Channel 5 today. “With this whole initiative we are only standing up for the chance to choose to watch films in good quality Ukrainian translation”. “We are not expecting help from outside, from the government for example, and therefore all of our actions are exclusively economic, in order to motivate the owners of cinema, whether in Lviv or Donetsk or Odessa”, Bondarenko stressed. During the television broadcast, Anatoly Bondarenko also stated that they would boycott cinemas which do not show films with Ukrainian translation. “If such a refusal to engage in dialogue continues, we will give serious consideration to calling for a boycott of those cinemas belonging to “Odessa – kino” in Kyiv”. This week the memorandum signed in January between the Ministry of Culture and cinema distributers came into effect. According to this document, by the end of the year, 50% of films must have a soundtrack, dubbing or subtitles in Ukraine. Children’s films and cartoons should be 100% in Ukrainian. These norms also apply to films which are produced on video or DVD. An exception is made for films produced in Russia.