Culture Minister comments on development of domestic film industry

The production of feature films will increase to 100 a year in Russia by2006, Russian Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoy announced at a meeting withjournalists today. The production of cartoons will rise to 65 a year andthe number of new documentaries will reach 330 a year. According to theMinister, 1.5bn rubles (about $47m) have been budgeted for 2003 to supportthe domestic film industry, which will be 50 percent more than this year.The total volume of budget allocations for culture was increased by 34percent..