Petrov’s Flu, directed by the dissident Russian film-maker Kirill Serebrennikov, who’s laying the chaos on thick and fast. I’m liking the movie but many others are not.
11.07.2021 - 10:45 / deadline.com
If you’ve ever fancied taking the train from Moscow to the far northwestern Russian city of Murmansk above the Arctic Circle, Compartment No. 6 (Hytti No. 6) will almost certainly cure you of the urge. At the same time, Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s second film, which is about such a journey, offers up vivid emotional twists and turns that are charted with unusual acuity, qualities that will propel it to a modest but well noted life on the festival circuit.
A lively farewell party marks the
Petrov’s Flu, directed by the dissident Russian film-maker Kirill Serebrennikov, who’s laying the chaos on thick and fast. I’m liking the movie but many others are not.
Watching the tumultuous and punishing Russian extravaganza Petrov’s Flu is like suffering a physical assault in a dark alley, or having a load of garbage jammed down your throat and piled on top of you until you just can’t take it anymore. Experimental theater bad boy and 2018 Cannes competition Leto entrant Kirill Serebrennikov takes a throw-in-everything-including-the-kitchen sink approach to painting an appallingly bleak portrait of modern Russian life.
Kira Kovalenko’s Russian drama Unclenching The Fists won the Grand Prize in Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar this year.
Christopher Vourlias Mubi, the London-based streamer and theatrical distributor that’s been on a buying spree this week in Cannes, has acquired the rights for North America, U.K., and a host of other territories for Kira Kovalenko’s “Unclenching the Fists,” which took home the top prize in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, Variety can reveal.Set in a former mining town in Russia’s North Ossetia region, “Unclenching the Fists” is the story of a young woman, played by Milana
Guy Lodge Film CriticCANNES — At a banner ceremony for female filmmakers, Russian writer-director Kira Kovalenko’s sophomore feature “Unclenching the Fists” won the top prize for best film in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival this evening, from a jury headed by British filmmaker Andrea Arnold.
Pat Saperstein Deputy EditorSony Pictures Classics announced Thursday it has acquired rights for North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East for “Compartment No. 6,” the Finnish film that premiered in competition in Cannes.Acquired from Totem Films, it’s the second feature directed by Juho Kuosmanen, and is based on the novel by Rosa Liksom.
Sony Pictures Classics said Thursday that it has acquired North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Middle East rights to Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No. 6, the Finnish film that just had its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The deal was struck with Totem Films.
CANNES, France -- Celebrated Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov is banned from leaving his home country, so he is attending the Cannes Film Festival virtually. Serebrennikov phoned into the red-carpet premiere of his film, “Petrov's Flu,” by FaceTime and spoke to the media on Tuesday by Zoom.A seat was left open for the 51-year-old director when “Petrov's Flu” premiered Monday in Cannes.
Christopher Vourlias Kirill Serebrennikov made an appearance by FaceTime on Monday after the premiere of “Petrov’s Flu,” which bowed in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The 51-year-old helmer is banned from leaving Russia and was unable to attend the opening.“I would like to thank everyone who is here.
Guy Lodge Film CriticIt’s been two years since iconoclastic Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov was released from a 20-month period of house arrest on embezzlement charges widely considered to have been trumped up by the government. If things haven’t been plain sailing since then — the revived case ended in a suspended sentence last year, confining the director to his home country — he has at least been free to roam, work and film in Russia.
Naman Ramachandran The Netherlands Film Fund and the Swedish Film Institute are among eight European public funders that are launching ‘New Dawn,’ an inclusion and equality production fund that aims to support under-represented groups in the world of film. Apart from the Netherlands and Sweden, the other founder funding bodies are from Slovenia, Denmark, Finland, French and Flemish Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Christopher Vourlias Three years after his musical drama “Leto” bowed on the Croisette, Kirill Serebrennikov returns to Cannes’ main competition with “Petrov’s Flu,” a deadpan, hallucinatory romp through a post-Soviet Russia in the grips of a mysterious flu epidemic. The acclaimed director spoke to Variety about living with fear and making the most out of solitude.How did you get involved with “Petrov’s Flu”? I was hired to write the script.
Marta Balaga Following his 2016 Un Certain Regard win with “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki,” Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen is back in Cannes with “Compartment No. 6,” and this time, in the main competition.
Cinema’s love affair with trains goes back, of course, to the very origins of the art form, and more than a century later, the flame shows no sign of dimming. To recent examples such as “Snowpiercer” (2013), “Train to Busan” (2016), and the latest of many adaptations of “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017) can now be added “Compartment no.6” (“Hytti Nro 6”) from Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, premiering in Competition at this year’s Festival de Cannes.
Jessica Kiang For anyone who’s ever got drunk on bad schnapps with a stranger, for anyone who’s ever been properly alone in a nowhere-town and spoken to a dial tone just to look like they had something to do, for anyone who’s ever been asked how to say “I love you” in their language and has patiently sounded out the words for “Fuck you” … Juho Kuosmanen’s deeply delightful Cannes competition title “Compartment No.
“Clara Sola” and a naturalistic one in the African film “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds,” and it’s even surfaced in Charlotte Gainsbourg’s documentary about her mother, Jane Birkin, “Jane by Charlotte,” in Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir Part II” and in Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World.”Of those films, most are by female directors.
He may be barred from leaving Russia and thus unable to travel to Cannes, but arthouse cinema favorite Kirill Serebrennikov is refusing to let that dampen his spirit ahead of the premiere of his latest movie, Petrov’s Flu, in the French fest’s Competition.