Russia's Rossiya 1 TV channel will consider making a TV series depicting the brighter side of school life rather than the controversial series shown on national Channel One, a spokeswoman for Rossiya 1 said.
"The proposal is reasonable. We will consider it," she told RIA Novosti after Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of Russian parliament's lower house, the State Duma, suggested during a visit to a school in the central Russian city of Ryazan Tuesday that a "positive" TV series be shot and shown on Rossiya-1.
Shkola (School), a 60-part fictional series showing the harsh reality of Russian schools, was launched on Channel One January 11, and has sparked heated public debate.
Some public figures and politicians demanded its creators be reprimanded, but Pavel Astakhov, a lawyer and presidential ombudsman on children's rights, said the series "teaches [teenagers] to assess their behavior from the outside," which, he said, "is a great thing."
School was shot by young director Valeria Gai Germanika, who also directed Everybody Dies Except Me, another teenage oriented film, which received several international awards, including two prizes at the Cannes International Film Festival 2008.
The producers described School, showing schoolchildren openly smoking and drinking beer, harassing their classmates and snubbing teachers, as "a radical series about teenagers."
Channel One said in a statement the series was designed to help President Dmitry Medvedev, who proclaimed 2010 the Year of the Teacher, as part of efforts to revive quality schooling in the country.
MOSCOW, January 27 (RIA Novosti)
