Russian Film Symposium 2004

Program Four: NTV-Profit Film Company

Thu May 6	Fri May 7
10am Nikolai Lebedev: The Admirer, 1999. Intro by Aleksandr Prokhorov.	10am Denis Evstigneev: Let's Make Love, 2001. Intro by Michelle Kuhn.
2pm Egor Mikhalkov-Konchalovskii: The Recluse, 2000. Intro by Elena Prokhorova.	2pm Yevgeny Gindilis on NTV-Profit Film Company/Angel Films 2.30pm Aleksandr Proshkin: The Captain's Daughter, 2000. Intro by Susan Larsen.

Screenings take place at 106 David Lawrence Hall

NTV-Profit was established on 16 October 1995 as a joint company uniting Vladimir Gusinskii's independently owned NTV Television Company and Igor' Tolstunov's film production company Profit, which he had founded in 1995. Tolstunov is still the General Director of NTV-Profit Film Company.

Tolstunov graduated from the Economics Department of the State Institute for Filmmaking (VGIK) in 1978. In the early 1980s he worked with director Sergei Gerasimov at Gor'kii Film Studio; between 1985 and 1985 he was involved with the production of several television serials, including Peter the Great and TASS is Authorized to Announce. Together with directors Valerii Todorovskii and Sergei Livnev, he created Studio TTL in 1990 and became the studio's executive director in 1991. Tolstunov produced the following films while with TTL: Love (Valerii Todorovskii, 1991), Kiks (Sergei Livnev, 1991), Dreams of an Idiot (Vasilii Pichul, 1993), and Midnights Near Moscow (Valerii Todorovskii, 1994). After Studio TTL collapsed in 1994, Tolstunov established the production company Profit.

In 1998, even after Gusinskii was forced to give up control of his media empire (Media Most) and to flee the Russian Federation, NTV-Profit continued to be one of the subsidiaries of Media Most Holding Company. Other subsidiaries include NTV-Kino (production of television films and serials), Kino Most (creation of a network of movie theaters and a film studio), Most-Cinematograph (film distribution), and Most-Video (video distribution).

NTV-Profit specializes in film production. It is an independent motion picture studio with the country's largest number of films in production at any moment. Between 1995 and 2000 the studio produced 17 full-length feature films and one television serial.

Since 2002 Tolstunov has been the Deputy General Director of STS television channel, where he has served as the executive producer for two television serials based on novels by Dar'ia Dontsovskaia: Evlampiia Romanova: The Investigation is Conducted By a Dilettante (2003) and Dasha Vasil'eva: A Fan of Private Investigations (2003). He has also produced several films for Angel Films Production Studio: Let's Make Love (Denis Evstigneev, 2002), Summer Rain (Aleksandr Atanesian, 2002), and Little Lord Fauntleroy (Ivan Popov, 2003). Tolstunov is currently producing Pavel Chukhrai's latest film, A Driver for Vera, as well as several other films and television serials.

Films and television serials produced by NTV-Profit:

• The Admirer (Nikolai Lebedev, 1999)
• The Bourgeois' Birthday (Anatolii Mateshko, 2000; television serial, 15 episodes)
• The Bourgeois' Birthday 2 (Anatolii Mateshko, 2001; television serial, 15 episodes)
• Captain's Daughter (Aleksandr Proshkin, 2000; Russia and France)
• The Circus Burnt Down and the Clowns Ran Away (Vladimir Bortko, 1998)
• Come and See Me (Mikhail Agranovich and Oleg Iankovskii, 2000)
• Don't Insult Women (Valerii Akhadov, 1999)
• East-West(Regis Wargnier, 1999; Bulgaria, France, Russia, and Spain)
• Give Me the Light of the Moon (Dmitrii Astrakhan, 2000; both the director and the scriptwriter demanded their names be removed from the credits)
• I Want to Go to Jail (Alla Surikova, 1999)
• It's Easy to Die (Aleksandr Khvan, 1999)
• Keys to Death (Vsevolod Plotkin, 2001; television serial, 8 episodes)
• Luna Papa (Bakhtier Khudoinazarov, 1999; Tajikistan, Russia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan)
• Mama (Denis Evstigneev, 1999)
• The Orphan of Kazan (Vladimir Mashkov, 1997)
• The Recluse (Egor Konchalovskii, 2000)
• The Thief (Pavel Chukhrai, 1997)
• Three Stories (Kira Muratova, 1997; Russia and Ukraine)
• Twenty Four Hours (Aleksandr Atanesian, 2000)
• Two Moons, Three Suns (Roman Balaian, 1998; Russia and Ukraine)
• The Voroshilov Sharpshooter (Stanislav Govorukhin, 1999)