Soviet Film Boss Goes Hollywood

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s fifth column for spreading the word glasnost throughout the United States--the export of Soviet arts and culture--uncovered one of its newest commanders, Alexander Kamshalov, at this year’s American Film Market on Friday and at subsequent formal and informal meetings in Los Angeles.

As chairman of the Soviet state film monopoly Goskino, Kamshalov, 56, is the Soviet Union’s most powerful film executive, wielding tremendous power over all aspects of the U.S.S.R.’s film industry: production, theatrical distribution, home video, and import and export. Further, unlike many other Soviet executives, Kamshalov reportedly has the authority to make deals without submitting them for approval from political superiors in Moscow.

Thus the chairman’s visit to the international film bazaar at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and to Hollywood’s own corridors of power takes the newly minted entente between American and Soviet film makers a step further--even if Kamshalov’s visit was more of a social call than an extended business meeting.

At his well-attended news conference Friday morning, Kamshalov--speaking through an interpreter and flanked by American and Soviet officials and film executives--outlined the current co-production activity in his country, and expressed his hopes for more and better relations between the two superpowers.

“Three-quarters of a bridge has been built between our two nations--one-quarter each at Geneva, at Reykjavik and in Washington,” Kamshalov said. “I hope that the last part, the part which completes this immortal bridge, will be forged in (later this year at a planned Reagan-Gorbachev summit in) Moscow.”

Kamshalov told of the general success among high-ranking Soviets of Entertainment Summit II in late January, which saw 10 American film industry representatives journey to the Soviet capital.

He also cited Soviet approval of an American film festival in Moscow this month that included such films as “E.T.” and a sample of President Reagan’s first career, 1942’s “King’s Row.”

Kamshalov also mentioned a major retrospective of French films, prompting him to quip: “There had not been so many Frenchmen in Moscow since Napoleon Bonaparte.”

The Soviet film czar said he came armed with “no specific, ironclad agenda” for his meetings here, save for a general desire “to see more Soviet films find a more generous distribution (in the United States)” and to “prepare the ground for more obviously fruitful meetings to come.”

(One hastily planned micro-summit with Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, was still “up in the air” over the weekend due to the schedules of both men. Valenti, for his part, confirmed Friday that a letter written to Gorbachev espousing many of Kamshalov’s views on the freer exportation of American films and the importation of Soviet product was indeed Valenti’s own. Said Valenti to Daily Variety: “I’m hopeful (Gorbachev) thinks this is a good business deal.”)

Kamshalov himself noted that his visit was “exploratory” and “designed to establish contact and good will” at a high-profile but very casual party in his honor at record producer Quincy Jones’ sprawling Bel-Air home on Friday evening. In an informal interview, standing casually in Jones’ billiards room, a crisply dressed and groomed Kamshalov gestured expansively toward the party’s numerous celebrities and powerful industry figures and said with a grin: “We will have to get used to working with such internationally famous people too. We Soviets get star struck.”

A bit of a Soviet-style good ol’ boy, Kamshalov tended to downplay his own importance. “I’m still new to my big job,” he said, adding that he was appointed by the Politburo in December, 1986, with the mandate “to bring in some fresh faces and see what we can do.”

(Nonetheless, Kamshalov’s own political influence is considerable. He is a deputy member of the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet Union’s legislative body.)

One Soviet film industry executive whose face is already known in Los Angeles--Soviet Film Makers Union chief and film director Elem Klimov, who represented Soviet film during last March’s ground-breaking Entertainment Summit--received a ringing endorsement from Kamshalov.

“No, no, he is not being replaced,” he said, referring to Klimov’s reported decision to take a “creative leave” and resume work on a film adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s modernist novel, “The Master and Margherita.”

“On the contrary, (Klimov) must stay until 1991 (the end of his elected term),” Kamshalov said. “He is too important, and too talented, to leave us.” Kamshalov added that Klimov’s election predated his own appointment, and “there are things he must still teach me.”

Kamshalov remarked that it was his responsibility to see that “Soviet film, with its long history, does not take a back seat to American film in this exchange. I am quite determined to see that Soviet films are more widely seen in this country: not only for business and diplomatic reasons but also because we want to show you what we can really do.”

Then, with a smile, Kamshalov added: “We sincerely want to end the story of ignorance and fear that has blocked our countries from dealing fairly with each other.

“And I agree with my friend Elem Klimov and also your American film makers that films are really the best way to start writing a new, and hopefully more civilized, story.”