Russian Federation

[RU] Cinema fined for comedy exhibition

IRIS 2018-5:1/30

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

On 22 February 2018, a Justice of the Peace in Moscow made a decision on an administrative case in relation to an offence committed by Centromobile Pioner, a limited liability company which owns a Moscow cinema called “Pioner”. The case centred around the violation of paragraph 1 of Article 14.58 of the Code on Administrative Offences (see IRIS 2002-6/34), entitled “Exhibition of a film and/or showing of a film without an exhibition licence”).

The case relates to the incident on 23 January 2018 when the Russian Ministry of Culture withdrew the licence to exhibit “The Death of Stalin”, a 2017 UK/France political satire comedy, initially issued by the Ministry on 29 December 2017. The film was screened in the Pioner on 25 and 26 January.

In court, the defendants claimed that they had not been aware of the fact that the licence had been withdrawn, as the film distributor, “Volga Film”, had not informed them on time. The judge ordered an administrative fine of 100 000 RUB (about EUR 1 400) for each screening on 25 January and of 80 000 RUB for each screening on 26 January 2018. The decision was not appealed.


References

  • Номер дела: 05-0207/208/2018
  • http://mos-sud.ru/ms/208/act/as/?id=9979496&year=2018
  • Resolution of the Justice of the Peace of the District Court No. 208 of Dorogomilovo rayon of the city of Moscow N.P.Smelyanskaya in administrative case No. 05-0207/208/2018 of 22 February 2018

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IRIS 2002-6:1/34 [RU] Code on Administrative Offences Adopted

This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.