[pp.int.general] First Russian film released under Creative Commons license: "Have you forgotten what we used to play?"

[Lola Voronina]

Fellow Pirates,

I want to make you aware of a project of Russian film-makers called "Have
you forgotten what we used to play?". The short film by the Artkino and
LookAround Pictures is the first Russian movie released under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND license. It tells the story of a young man turning to his
childhood memories while arranging the sale of his old country house. The
filmmakers hope not only to cover the production costs, but also to build
up funding for their next project from the contributions from the movie’s
Internet audience. This is the first instance of a film released in Russia
under the Creative Commons license.

The film was shot by a team of twenty enthusiasts using the producer’s
personal money in 2009-2010. Despite the film’s small budget of only $6000,
the short has picked up awards at various Russian author cinema festivals.
Private cinemas all over Russia began screening the film in September 2010. One
year after the premiere, September 24, 2011, the film came into the public
domain, as part of an agreement between the director and producer. Now,
anyone can download or watch it on Youtube, supporting the production team
according to the “Pay What You Can” model.

In December 2011, the filmmakers decided to introduce the film to an
international audience with the help of the world-renowned service vo.do, a
media distributor releasing films under the Creative Commons license. The
subtitled English version can be downloaded at Vo.Do or viewed online in
official movie site - http://video.finar.ru/

The director of the movie contacted the Pirate Party of Russia asking for
help with the promotion. As we are regularly attending various TV shows and
debates, explaining to the authors that with Internet they do not need
producers any more and that earning money on the Net is easy, we thought
that it it was our responsibility to help them. We arranged the
publications in Russian press and Internet, gave them the information about
existing payment services and installed Flattr to their page.

In my personal opinion the movie is crap! The plot and the characters are
too primitive and the acting is below average. It is nothing special.
However it's exactly how the Russian summer life in '90s looked like,
therefore it might be of interest for people from other countries – to
compare their memories with the memories of Russians.

I'm going to donate the guys my 10 euro for their movie anyway because I
respect their efforts and because I believe in the Internet. The movie team
was working for free, on pure enthusiasm. They promised to spend the money
to produce a new movie. I really hope that the new movie will be much
better - they have the potential!

I want to support his project because Pirate Party of Russia is promoting
it and I want to show the producers that the new business models we offer
to the creators actually do work, and because this movie made me remember
what I used to play when was a child...

Best regards,
Lola Voronina,
International Coordinator, Pirate Party of Russia
Chief Administrative Officer, Pirate Parties International
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