Cinema Park, Russia's newestfilm company formed by Russian financial and metals conglomerate InterRosGroup, Nikita Mikhalkov's production company TRITE and Andrei Konchalovsky'sDVD distributor Movie Stream, closed its first major acquisitions at AFM led bySeven Arts Signature International's $60m animated feature Foodfight! being produced by Larry Kassanoff's ThresholdEntertainment.

The vertically integratedCinema Park, which has ambitious plans to expand on its exhibition assets inRussia (it already owns and operates the six-screen MDM-Kino in Moscow), also picked up comedy BarelyLegal from MPCA and two action filmsfrom Hannibal Pictures - Ballad To The End Of The World and Old Soldiers.The deals were sealed by Stanislav Pribylov, thepresident of the company, following two initial acquisitions at MIFED - ADifferent Light from Arclight and GreyfriarsBobby from Winchester Films.

Cinema Park is aggressivelyseeking big-budget pictures for Russia in an attempt to crack into thecompetitive market which expanded from a $65.1m total theatrical gross in 2001to $111.7m in 2002. There are nine leading distributors in the territory lastyear 263 films were released (only 42 of which were Russian).