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says Serhiy Sozanovskyi, 53, co-owner of Film.ua Group, which unites more than 20 companies in the field of film and television production. For 15 years, former lawyer Sozanovskyi has been building a studio, which is jokingly called "Hollywood in Troeshchyna". In 2019, the income of Film.ua reached UAH 1 billion. The company's series are bought by Netflix and Amazon, some films have been watched in 50 countries. And 10 years ago, the studio earned mostly from Russian TV channels. The story began when Sozanovsky founded the Konnov and Sozanovsky law firm. Among others, she served businessman and politician Igor Pluzhnikov. He asked the lawyers to fix the "Inter" TV channel. "I didn't have any love for television then," says Victor Mirsky, 44, Sozanovsky's partner at Film.ua. He worked as a lawyer at Konnov and Sozanovskyi and, together with others, began to understand the television industry. Subsequently, he headed the direction of content purchases at "Inter". In 2002, Sozanovskyi and Mirskyi, following the example of European broadcasters, created a content production company within the structure of "Inter". The name Film.ua was invented by Sozanovskyi, "who was always clever with names," says producer Vlad Ryashin, who was then the chairman of the board of Inter. Pluzhnikov died in 2005 as a result of toxic hepatitis. Valery Khoroshkovskyi acquired a controlling stake in "Inter" from his descendants. Film.ua was useless to the new shareholder, so Sozanovsky and Mirsky bought it out. "The company had no assets, only the name," Mirsky recalls. At the same time, they bought a factory in Troeshchyna from the Pluzhnikov family, which once produced essences for lemonades. In 2006, the first studio pavilion of 900 square meters was opened there. m. The studio started shooting TV series mostly for Russian TV channels, which paid six to seven times more than Ukrainian ones. 70–80% of Film.ua's revenue came from Russia.

"Our main asset in those days was working 20 hours a day," Mirsky recalls. In the first year, Film.ua published more than 40 telefilms. "Theoretically, all our competitors could shoot that much, but few wanted to work with such a load," he explains.

Mirsky recalls the period of high productivity from 2007 to 2010 as the most difficult times. The company was then gaining a reputation as a reliable provider of a large amount of content. In addition, Mirsky managed the company himself, without Sozanovsky.

After Viktor Yanukovych came to power, Khoroshkovskyi headed the SBU. At this point, they and Sozanovsky parted ways. "For me, the channel has always been a business, and for the owners - primarily a means of political influence," explains Sozanovskyi. He asked for his resignation in his office on Volodymyrska Street, where the headquarters of the special service is located.

His return coincided with a real breakthrough for Film.ua. "We came to higher quality and more expensive products," says Mirsky. The studio produced several series costing $150,000–250,000 per episode. "The Ballad of the Bomber", "Butterflies", "The Sniff", "The Red Queen" received good ratings on Russian and Ukrainian channels.

According to Mirsky, in order to shoot a quality TV series 10 years ago, 70% of his budget had to cover the Russian market. For example, "Butterflies" cost $250,000 per episode. The Ukrainian channel was ready to pay $50,000, another $200,000 had to be earned on TV channels from Russia.

A large neighborhood TV market helped Ukrainian to grow. "If it weren't for 2014, today the post-Soviet TV market would be in the top five in the world," says Mirsky. "We flew into space."

The landing turned out to be hard. With the beginning of Russian aggression, film production stopped. "Russia didn't buy anything, Ukraine didn't," Sozanovsky recalls. Mirsky remembered this period as "very painful".