Director Alexander Kharlamov accused the Ministry of Culture and the AKM studio of gigantically inflating the budget of the film called “To the Good Bees.” Details of the scandal surrounding yet another misappropriation of state money became known to the Cheka-OGPU.
Director Alexander Kondrashov with the pseudonym Kharlamov (before starting his professional career he shot advertising and collaborated with Ayaz Shabutdinov) agreed to make a film based on his script with the producers of AKM production. The real owner of the studio is considered to be Vladimir Pirozhok, well-known in cinematic circles, but in fact the business is run by producers with less famous names. However, it was Pirozhok who initially named himself the general producer of the full-length comedy “To the Good Bees!”, written and directed by Alexander Kharlamov. Of course, Pirozhok did not expect that the director would turn out to be obstinate.
Kharlamov went through the so-called pitching – he presented and defended his project at the Ministry of Culture, receiving approval for funding. After this, the director and studio representatives drew up an estimate in which the production budget came out to 19 million rubles. This money was supposed to cover all the expenses for an essentially simple picture: according to the plot, the robbers planned to raid the apartment of a famous football player, but by mistake they cleaned out the home of the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate, after which exciting adventures began in their lives.
The process was confidently moving towards filming until a representative of AKM contacted Alexander Kharlamov. The interlocutor asked the director to urgently sign the papers, and mentioned an increase in the amount requested by the Ministry of Culture. It was about 100 million, which is at least 5 times more than the initially agreed budget. The caller answered the director’s questions, saying that in fact the budget for the production of the film will remain unchanged, and about the rest of the money he said something like: “Well, don’t you understand that the money will go into the pockets of the right people.”
After such a turn, Alexander Kharlamov refused to sign the documents. But, despite this, according to the director, all the necessary documents for the film were submitted to the Ministry of Culture (including applications that were not signed, but apparently were forged) and payment has already been made. The fact that the film was included in the list of projects that were financially supported by the Ministry of Culture was also reported by the Ministry of Culture and the media.
When the director complained about the 80 million rubles “attributed” to the budget, which in reality would not be suitable for the film, AKM LLC hastily changed the director (he became, according to preliminary data, a relative of Vladimir Pirozhka, his father-in-law Vladimir Bagramyants) and they tried to fire Alexander Kharlamov from his own film. The Ministry of Culture distanced itself from what was happening, and at the same time deleted from its resources the video recording of the pitching of the film “To the Good Bees!”, where Alexander Kharlamov defended the film before the commission. In response to Alexander Kharlamov’s questions about the reasons for the removal and who is now actually “driving” the film, the director of the cinematography department, Dmitry Davidenko, only waved it off, saying that he is not obliged to answer, and if there are any violations, then everything is at the request of the prosecutor’s office.
Meanwhile, secretly even from the scriptwriter and director of the film, Alexander Kharlamov, filming is in full swing! You can learn about this from a series of reports (posts) from the set of “Good Bees!” in the Moscow region, actor Viktor Bychkov. He played the episodic role of an elderly safecracker and shared photographs with his colleagues – the heroes of the series, famous artists Stepan Devonin and Fyodor Lavrov.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”