ST. PETERSBURG, October 14 (RIA Novosti) – An electricity provider in St. Petersburg said Monday that it may cut off power supplies to the historic Lenfilm movie studio unless it pays the bills by the end of the month.
The studio says it will pay off some of the 10 million ruble ($310,000) debt by this week, but the hold-up in payment points to persisting troubles at a company behind some of the most celebrated cinematic output from the Soviet Union and Russia.
Petersburg Power Distribution Company’s press office said Lenfilm’s outstanding debts have been mounting "since May 2012," and claims the studio has disregarded efforts to resolve the situation.
Lenfilm representative Valery Karpov said the studio was in talks with the power company to settle the debt.
“We have already transferred almost 12 million rubles for old debts and this week we will transfer another 2.5 million rubles,” Karpov said.
Lenfilm's problems drew the attention of then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in 2011, when he said that the studio required a major overhaul if it was to survive.
Variety magazine has cited industry experts as saying that saving the flagging film studio from ruin could cost at least $15 million. Officials at the company put the figure even higher.
Russia’s VTB Bank granted Lenfilm, which is 70 percent government controlled, a 1.5 billion ruble ($47 million) loan in September.
Lenfilm productions include cult favorite “Chapayev” (1934), a highly idealized account of the Russian civil war of the 1920s, Grigory Kozintsev’s “Hamlet,” winner of the Golden Lion at Venice in 1962, and Alexey Guerman’s 1998 film “Khrustalyov, My Car!” set in the final years of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
