Over 25 projects and cooperation with 70 countries: the creative industries in 2023
In 2023, the Creative Industries Agency completed more than 25 fashion, design, music, art, publishing and film projects. More than 3,000 people have already participated in these projects. The agency also organized several big events, including the Russian Creative Week: Moscow Fest, a city festival attended by more than 150,000 people, and the BRICS+ Fashion Summit, an international offline and online forum that attracted 3.5 million participants. Last year, the agency focused on international cooperation and established contacts with more than 70 friendly countries.
Film industry
In 2023, the Moscow: A Cinema City project won in the Area Development Project category of the Russian Creative Awards.
The Creative Industries Agency is involved in a number of big city projects, including those within the METMASH film cluster and the Moscow Digital Film Platform.
Today the METMASH film cluster consists of 12 resident companies, film studios, a props and costume center, an event and exhibition public center, and a materials center. The reconstruction of the METMASH film cluster started last year, and the first filming took place in March 2023. A total of 14 films, including Aunt Martha 2, Abrek, Salto Mortale, The Ivanovs vs. The Ivanovs, The Last Warrior 4, Non-Children’s Movie and others, were shot in 2023.
Last December, the METMASH film cluster opened a costume and props center, the Firebird, which was previously located in Perovskoye Motorway. The relocation made it possible to increase the area from 1,000 to 9,000 square meters. The first costume and props facility covering an area of more than 3,000 square meters has already opened its doors to visitors. It stores about five million items, including prints of such films as Ivan the Terrible, Land of Legends, Matilda, The Golden Horde, Ice, A Dog Named Palma, The Bremen Town Musicians, and The Master and Margarita. Items from around the world are regularly added to the collection of costumes and props.
The end of September 2023 was marked by piloting the Moscow Digital Film Platform, a single point of access to the entire range of film production services offered by the city, including rental of pavilions, studios, costumes, props and equipment, and arrangements for location shooting in iconic and landmark locations. The platform fundamentally changes the approach to approving filmmaking projects in the city: renting a studio or a site in the capital becomes as simple as booking a hotel room. Since the launch of the platform, film production companies have submitted more than 370 applications for shooting in Moscow. The platform now offers over 330 locations and facilities which include historical and contemporary streets, estates, mansions, museums, libraries, universities, schools, hospitals, factories and even parking lots.
Users of the film platform have access to 3D models and panoramas of some buildings included in the Moscow Digital Twin project. They give a clue about what a location and its surroundings may look like. This option is now available for sports facilities, but the number of other facilities, including filming locations, offered by the film platform will increase.
In 2023, the city launched a unique project called Materials Center as part of the METMASH film cluster. It is the first online and offline platform in Russia that brings together designers and material manufacturers from more than 10 countries, including China, Turkey, Thailand, Uzbekistan, India, Indonesia and others. The Materials Center platform includes over 3,000 wide-ranging items. Each material has a card with a full description, characteristics and photographs. Users select the product they want, add it to their cart, specify the required quantity and place their order. The platform is going to open a trend area. The center’s website already includes a Trends section to download trend books. Also, the center will run a multifunctional space that will host international buyer sessions, lecture and presentation areas, an exhibition hall, a sewing co-working area, production areas and photo and video studios for content creation. As part of the Materials Center project, a trend office will be launched for Russian entrepreneurs to learn about current trends and future macrotrends in the fashion world.
Key events and projects
Last spring, a special light industry project called Light Industry Factory was launched. It aims to attract top talents to meet the market demand and promote light industry jobs. The program involved graduates of clothing design or construction universities and vocational schools—both young and experienced professionals. It included four courses: sewing, design, cutting and technology.
In 2023, the agency also ran several “fashion markets”. It is one of the most popular efforts to support entrepreneurs: they are provided with free platforms for selling their products. The format was successfully tested at the markets within Moscow Fashion Week, the Russian Creative Week: Moscow Fest and the City of Your Ideas festival. The markets help designers find new customers, improve their profits and fine-tune communication channels with their consumers and partners. Last year, the markets’ total sales revenue amounted to RUB 27.8 million.
Last August, the Creative Industries Agency and the Telegraph Department Store completed the joint project called Moscow Designers’ Section. 60 Moscow-based designers presented their collections in one of the largest shopping centers in Moscow and got the opportunity to build up their brand. The total turnover of the Moscow Designers Section was RUB 27.2 million (22.4 per cent of the department store’s total turnover).
BRICS+ Fashion Summit, an international forum, was a landmark fashion project in 2023. It brought together designers, brand founders, representatives of the light industry and experts from more than 60 countries. 3.5 million people attended the event or watched it live online. The participants discussed promising areas for international cooperation, the development of entrepreneurship, the use of the latest technologies and the preservation of cultural heritage in fashion.
From July 3 to July 9, Gorky Park, Zaryadye Park, Muzeon Arts Park, Moscow Contemporary Art Center Vinzavod and other venues hosted the Russian Creative Week: Moscow Fest. The festival seeks to enable visitors to get acquainted with the creative class, the products they create, and to increase demand for the products and services of creative entrepreneurs. The festival brought together creative people from Russia and friendly countries. Performances and fashion shows at the most visited venues, VDNKh and Kuznetsky Most, attracted 5,000 people. In total, the organizers held over 800 masterclasses, concerts, film screenings and lectures, involving more than 150.000 people from Moscow, 35 other Russian regions as well as 19 countries.
One of the agency’s key projects is the Design Factory 2.0 competition aimed to include the industrial design in the production chains of Russian production companies, develop high-quality original import-substituting design solutions for domestic manufacturers and establish good communication between Moscow designers and large customers. The competition helps designers, manufacturing and export-oriented companies, the business community and industry experts interact with each other to launch new products for the domestic industry that ensure international competitiveness and technological self-sufficiency of the Russian economy and meet the demands of the country's consumers. Over the course of the year, the project presented 359 solutions for 190 business customers and drew 660 designers from 57 Russian regions.
Another project aimed at developing the design industry is the Design Workshop competition. As part of it, designers create popular promotional items for municipal and federal institutions and business entities. For example, in 2023, project participants developed concepts for TsNIIMash, VDNKh, the Lomonosov cluster, the Museum of Russian Impressionism, Mosturism, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve, Mosgorpark, the Museum of Moscow, the Zotov Center, the Vladimir Mayakovsky Theater, the METMASH film cluster and other companies. Last year, more than 360 creators took part in three competitions and two special Design Workshop tracks.
The agency supports its partners after the end of the competition as well: it helps them find a manufacturer to implement design solutions and establish communication with participants to finalize the project, and provides information support for product release.
Support for publishing houses
Supported by the Creative Industries Agency, 10 Moscow publishing houses took part in the Shanghai International Children's Book Fair with their own expo spaces to share their products for the first time with partners from the Asia-Pacific and friendly countries. The three-day fair in Shanghai ran from November 17 to November 19, bringing together publishers, illustrators, literary agencies and national associations. It included 405 business meetings with foreign book market players. Russian literature turned out to be extremely popular among business area participants. The expo space of Moscow publishing houses attracted a lot of visitors throughout the fair.
Following the fair, the 10 Moscow publishing houses that participated in it under the support from the Creative Industries Agency donated their books to the Russian Club in Shanghai to promote children's ties with Russian culture.
In April and December, 40 Moscow publishing houses supported by the Creative Industries Agency joined the Non/Fiction international book fair and sold 8,100 books worth RUB 7.9 million. The Creative Industries Agency also held 32 events included in the business and public programs.
Support for art industry
The Creative Industries Agency is implementing a step-by-step system to support young representatives of the art industry. Supported by the Creative Industries Agency, they participate in the Art Moscow fair, the Win-Win market and a special project called Art: A Workshop. It allows artists to interact with representatives of the industry and have an opportunity to get their work displayed in art galleries.
In addition, together with the Art Moscow fair, the agency developed a complex program to encourage young promising artists of the Art: A Workshop project. Following the workshop, participants guided by art industry experts prepared their portfolio, resume and a project—an artistic statement. The best participants of the Art: A Workshop presented their works at the Art Moscow fair—15 artists took part in the agency’s section. The total sales amounted to more than RUB 1.8 million.
The Art Factory project’s experts and customers selected 12 out of 60 shortlisted works to decorate urban spaces and areas of residential complexes. In total, 200 projects designed for 10 customers were submitted for the competition, including public service centers, the Luzhniki sports complex, the International Sambo Center, the Panorama 360 observation deck, the DOM.RF financial institution for the housing sector development as well as large developers. Nine participants won the competition.
Training program
PRO.Creatus, an additional offline full-time professional development program using distance learning technologies, was launched to train entrepreneurs and top managers focused on the development of the creative industries market in Moscow. During the entire period, more than 400 training applications were submitted, and over 100 companies involved in music, cinema and animation, software and computer games, advertising, media, publishing and other areas were selected.
The Creative Industries Agency also launched an online course, Creatus Online. 361 people took part in it, 223 of them successfully passed the test and received certificates. After completing the program, the online course is available for free on the agency’s website; more than 60 people received completion certificates.
The agency also held three nine-day events for the Music Factory project to emphasize the key role of managers and producers in the development and promotion of an artist's career. They help artists release and present tracks, determine their positioning strategy and get media attention. The project enabled artists to release 48 tracks on audio streaming platforms. The songs have been streamed more than 1.1 million times. In addition, members of the Music Factory project performed at a concert in Gorky Park and at other city events. Two tracks by project graduates became soundtracks of a popular Russian TV series.
Between November and December 2023, the Creative Industries Agency organized a series of lectures on design, marketing and advertising at Moscow universities. Experts shared their experience and ideas with young representatives of the creative industries. The project involved the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow Polytechnic University, National Institute of Design, Universal University and the Institute of Business and Design (B&D).
Creative services center
The Creative Industries Agency also opened a creative business services center - a one-stop shop for those who want to start and develop their own business in the creative industries. Entrepreneurs can get advice on business support measures in the context of taxes and legislative regulation, assistance in preparing a package of documents for subsidies and support in promoting projects. In 2023, the center consulted more than a thousand representatives of the creative industries. Of these, 21 per cent are going to start their own business in this area, and 79 per cent have either just registered, or are actively developing, their creative business. Compared to 2022, the number of applications has increased by 60 per cent.
International connections
Thanks to its own brand, the agency is a point for representatives of the creative industries to enter major Russian and international markets and a communication platform to collect innovative ideas and receive feedback. Over the past year, it established cooperation with 70 countries. Three major city events were held involving international partners.
As part of international cooperation, the agency arranged business missions and received guests in Moscow. Cooperation arrangements were worked out and a number of agreements were signed. Partner countries include Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, Venezuela, Vietnam, Italy, Indonesia, Cuba, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Turkey and others.
Cooperation agreements were signed with Thailand’s Creative Economy Agency and Textile Institute. The Materials Center received 300 samples of fabrics and accessories from this country. The Creative Economy Agency and the representatives of the creative industries from Thailand took part in the festival events of the Russian Creative Week: Moscow Fest.
From November 4 to November 9, 2023, production companies from India visited the main filming locations in Moscow, including the METMASH film cluster, the Moskino Cinema Park near Yurovo in Troitsky Administrative District, the Ostankino and Kuskovo State Museum and Reserve and the Mosfilm Studio. The visit resulted in preliminary agreements on filming in Moscow, renting pavilions and equipment and engaging various experts in the film work.
Future of the creative industries
On December 12, 2023, the Creative Industries Agency and the Creative Industries Federation made a presentation of the project called 100 Most Creative Russians. 100 people were selected to determine the future of the creative industries, present and promote creative projects at different events, in the media and in international markets.
To identify key people in the creative industries, the Creative Industries Agency and the Creative Industries Federation conducted a survey among 2,000 creative professionals. The respondents included industry experts, opinion leaders, top managers, creative entrepreneurs and associations. The collected data were analyzed taking into account the recommendations by a special expert commission.