Does Ukrainian dubbing have a chance?

Bohdan Batrukh, founder and director general of the B&H Film Distribution, informed The Day that some of the computers and documents, that had previously been confiscated, were now returned. On April 5, the tax police of the State Tax Inspectorate in Kyiv Shevchenkivsky district confiscated accounting and organizational documents and computers that were the property of B&H Private Joint Stock Company, Kinopalats LLC, Cinema LLC, and also equipment for dubbing audiovisual products into Ukrainian language that belonged to Le Doyen LLC (see The Day No. 23, April 10, 2012).

“They have returned the computers and all the disks that were confiscated from the Le Doyen Studio. The establishment is already operating in normal mode. At this moment [the conversation took place on April 11. – Ed.] we are creating the copies of hard disks at the accounting department. So, all the offices are back to the routine work now. Though some computers and documents are still not returned,” told Bohdan BATRUKH to The Day. “I hope that the matters that are not solved yet will be examined through the administrative procedures in conformity with the laws of Ukraine. At least everything has been running smoothly since Monday. We did not face any more dramatic threats to the companies’ functioning, like the ones that happened on Thursday and Friday.”

However, the recent tax police “raiding” of the B&H is just the tip of the iceberg. Batrukh’s companies started having problems with the Tax Inspectorate back in 2010. This has been going on for two years. And since B&H is the first company to do the Ukrainian-language dubbing and is the leader of the film distribution market of Ukraine, this situation is brought up to a level higher.

The mass promotion of Ukrainian language into the cinemas started around 2007, after the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine issued the decree “On Some Aspects of Distribution and Demonstration of Films” on January 16, 2006. According to this document, a certain quota of films to be dubbed (voiced over and subtitled) in Ukrainian was set. Starting from September 1, 2006, no less than 20 percent of distributed films should be dubbed in Ukrainian, since January 1, 2007, this number was increased to 50 percent, and since July 1, 2007, the quota was set to 70 percent.

However, Andrii ANDRIIUK, public activist, participant of the Kino-Pereklad non-profit organization, told The Day that this decree was cancelled in 2007, partially thanks to the activity of some film distribution companies. In response to this, a group of Ukrainian MPs, including Viacheslav Kyrylenko, addressed the Constitutional Court, which later declared that all films were to be dubbed and subtitled in the state language.

“Despite the constant speculations on this matter (a lot of companies wanted to demonstrate movies with Russian dubbing and Ukrainian subtitles), a serious rollback happened only in 2010, when the political force in power changed,” Andriiuk says. “As a result, it was allowed to distribute films in any language, but the dubbing was to be done in Ukraine only. And since February 1, 2012, a resolution that allowed importing films with Russian dubbing from Russia, was adopted. This brought us back to where we were in 2006.”

It seems to be something more than a coincidence that Batrukh’s film distribution companies also started having problems in 2010.

The B&H Company was created in the 1990s. In 1998 the enterprise opened the first in Ukraine and the most up-to-date digital cinema Kinopalats. In 1994, as the owner of the company, Batrukh officially represented the American Motion Picture Association when took part in the creation and adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Copyright and Related Rights.”

“Batrukh’s companies are always the most law-abiding,” ex-head of the State Cinematography Agency of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Hanna CHMIL says. “When did the problems with the Tax Inspectorate emerge? When the Tax and Customs Services started interpreting the regulations concerning the taxes, especially the added-value tax, in different ways. When I worked as the head of the State Cinematography Agency, we often had to face the representatives of both institutions. And of course, all of them were determined to increase taxes as much as possible. When we realized that there was no possible way to solve this situation in a peaceful way, the amendments to the Law “On Cinematography” were made: the copies of foreign movies had to be produced in Ukraine before the screening. On the one hand, this was supposed to promote the growth of the national film industry, including the technical issues, and on the other, this was done to solve the issue. We have even bought the equipment for creating copies and film treatment equipment from a well-known French company.

“But as we have already stated, after the change of government in 2010, the problems appeared again. Negative amendments to the law were made, we were forced to give way to Russian film distributors. And finally, an artificial problem was pushed: it was said that not all of the Ukrainian citizens know Ukrainian language... But back then the harsh pressure on the Ukrainian film industry caused a wave of protests in the society. In 2010 writers and musicians addressed the president with an appeal to prevent the destruction of Ukrainian cinematography (see Den No. 102, June 15, 2010). In particular, they stated that “after the Constitutional Court of Ukraine had made its decision on the translation of foreign movies into Ukrainian, a constant increase of people attending Ukrainian cinemas was recorded.” Comparing to 2008, in 2009 the amount of cinema visitors jumped up by 15 percent. And what is the most essential, the quality of Ukrainian dubbing is better than Russian one. The audience itself votes for this with their feet.”

“When they start claiming people do not know Ukrainian, they forget that during the 20 years of Ukraine’s independence a new generation was brought up, those who studied Ukrainian at school and know it well. And this generation of young people makes up the core of the cinema audience today. Focusing on 70-year-old people who never studied or spoke Ukrainian would be ridiculous in this case,” Chmil says. “This language dispute was imprinted in my memory clearly, since serious people like Berezhna, Tsarkov, Kolesnychenko took part in it. They were always stating in their interviews that it was the violation of the human rights. I still remember the council at the Cabinet of Ministers in 2010. Vice prime minister on cultural issues Volodymyr Semynozhenko, people’s deputies, directors, and distributors were present at that meeting. The main matter of the debates was the cancellation of the compulsory dubbing and that it should be up to the owners of cinema networks or distributors if they want to do the Ukrainian dubbing or not. Actors and directors pointed out that the world film business functioned according to the rules that were in use in Ukraine at that time. And if we wanted to show a Ukrainian movie abroad, we would have to dub the film into the official language of the country we were willing to export it to. And this would be done at our own cost. But it resulted in an outcome I feared the most: a new draft law ‘On Cinematography’ was created, which completely neglected the national film status and the language matter. Luckily, this draft did not gain any support whatsoever and was not even submitted for consideration to the Verkhovna Rada. But it was right after that council that Batrukh’s companies started experiencing problems. The Tax Administration led an extremely powerful and well-organized attack on all of his structures. He was accused of paying less tax than it was required.

B&H Film Distribution was founded jointly with foreign partners, and it is frequently checked by international auditors who are familiar with our legislative base. Moreover, Batrukh was educated abroad and he knows perfectly well what the consequences of not abiding by law in the European countries are. That is why I am certain these raids by the Tax Administration are the result of some kind of underground activity.”

Currently the Administrative Court of Ukraine tries a case submitted by B&H. The company sues the Tax Service and appeals against the verdict that imposed an extra monetary obligation on it. The court of original jurisdiction passed the sentence in the company’s favor. During the investigation, the research forensic center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Administration in Kyiv carried out an expert examination. Its results proved the company’s actions to be fully legitimate. The same conclusion was drawn by the Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine. On June 18, 2011, the State Tax Administration of Ukraine provided B&H with clarifications on some tax legislative regulations that were the matter of dispute, and also proved the lawfulness of the company’s position. Despite this, the court of appeals arrived at an absolutely opposite conclusion about the justification of the tax service’s actions and denied the company the satisfaction of their claim. That is why B&H brought the case to the court of cassation.

“When the Supreme Court makes the decision, we are going to take it into consideration and comply with it. We hope that the Tax Inspectorate will comply with it, too. We won the first case. We lost the second one though, and that is why we are preparing new arguments. We will see what comes next,” Batrukh comments on the situation.

Considering the fact that the trial is still in process, the actions of the tax police, which confiscated computers and documents, were illegal all the more so. “If at least one copy of the confiscated films, which were not screened in the cinemas yet, appears on the market now, it is going to cause a huge international scandal,” Chmil says.

She thinks that since the process of Ukrainian dubbing elimination did not go smoothly through the legal action, the Batrukh case may become a part of the “big game”:

“So, it has now started, then they are going to paralyze the market and offer to amend the law – and that would be it. It is not worth it anymore in the procedural sense. I suppose that there was a collision of ideological and commercial interests of certain people. Back when Olena Bondarenko made amendments to the law on the music market quota system, and it passed, it was obvious that this would be continued.”

If you talk about the ideology, Ukrainian dubbing increased the amount of quality Ukrainian language in the national Ukrainian space. As a matter of fact, Harry Potter, Cars, or Pirates of the Caribbean shows with Ukrainian dubbing were sold out more than often. And Ukrainian language did not bother anyone; actually it was the other way around. According to Chmil, Ukrainian dubbing is considered to be one of the best and the most professionally done ones in the world. During this time period, a professional translation school and a Ukrainian dubbing and acting skill school were created. A great progress on the quality and professionalism of film industry has been achieved in Ukraine, are we just going to let it be ruined? And besides the cultural loss, we can also speak about the economic and professional ones too, in case Ukrainian dubbing is going to be destroyed. Batrukh’s companies provide jobs and ability to develop for scores of translators, actors, sound directors, and operators. Finally, this is a significant source of tax money, which goes straight to the Ukrainian budget. And if the present Ukrainian government underestimates the importance of the cultural compound, then its business acumen is not so bad. Perhaps only, some certain representatives of the government realize the consequences of the Ukrainian language being present in the movies too well. In this case, the task of the society is to stand up for what is theirs.