BRICS Filmmakers to Shoot Movies in Russia

Cities from westerns, remote villages, and streets of the Russian capital from the 40s to the present day. Over a thousand hectares have been allocated for the construction of film sets in Moscow, according to TV BRICS.

The site may become the largest for location shooting in the world. It has already attracted foreign filmmakers. They come in whole groups, even in freezing temperatures.

Hani Abul Hassan Abdul Hamid Ahmed, Advisor to the Chairman for International Cooperation of the Egyptian Creative Media Cluster, said: "We built the Egyptian media production city 30 or 40 years ago and we had the experience before. So I said — I asked actually — the colleagues and the friends in the Moscow government for culture to sign a protocol to big cities in the same field should be cooperating and exchanging the expertise to do great and good and new productions."

Several international films are already scheduled to be shot in Moscow in 2025. Teams will come from Brazil, Thailand, Egypt, and Cameroon.

Yury Yarushnikov, CEO of Virtual Production Studio, noted: "We were talking to our Indian colleagues who were here at the film factory and they are just now thinking about moving two big projects from Bollywood to Moscow. These are big projects with big Indian stars, straight top three, and there is a high probability that they will move. Especially now Moscow is opening up a system of rebates, especially for the BRICS countries."

The creators of international film projects will be able to reimburse up to 30% of the costs of shooting in the Russian capital.

The program began operating in April 2025. Support will be given to joint films by Russian and foreign productions.

Aleksey Fursin, Minister of the Moscow City Government and Head of the Moscow Department of Culture, commented: "It is important for us that Russian film producers and production companies see the potential in creating joint projects with foreign companies. This enriches both productions in any case, because the technology, the filming methods themselves, they develop differently in each country."

The film producers of Russia and China have more than successful experience in this regard. The latest joint film collected 100 million rubles in its first few days of distribution and a few weeks later more than 500 million rubles.

The project entered the celestial empire market with ease, thanks to cooperation, outside the foreign quota that China has for foreign films.

"The Chinese actors are more careful about the text, about learning the material, because it's all new to them. It's a whole new world, something they've immersed themselves in," said Russian director Andrey Volgin.

Gosha Kutsenko, Producer and honorary artist of Russia, added: "We conveyed the beauty of Shanghai in the 1920s. It was so beautiful, so unexpected, it was such a civilization already powerful in general. China is beautiful, and I think that fate will bring us together in its next turn."

The countries intend to sign a large-scale agreement on cooperation in film production.

Russia is also developing similar documents for cooperation with Brazil, Vietnam, Cuba, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa, and Serbia.