Foreign Leaders of Soviet Film Distribution: What Were They Like?

Abstract

In his new monograph "100 Foreign Leaders of Soviet Film Distribution: A Selected Collection", professor Alexander Fedorov gives a panorama of one hundred popular foreign films in the USSR in the mirror of the opinions of film critics and viewers. Professor Marina Tselykh talks to the author of the book, designed for university teachers, students, graduate students, researchers, film critics, film historians, journalists, as well as for a wide range of readers who are interested in the problems of movies. Based on the analysis made in the book, it can be reasonably stated that the first hundred of the most popular foreign films in Soviet cinemas included only films that exceeded the threshold of thirty million spectators. Based on attendance figures, it is clear (and we expect) that movies of entertaining genres (adventure, action, melodramas, comedies, detectives, westerns, science fiction) turned out to be the most popular among Soviet viewers.