Kirill Serebrennikov Talks Russian Boycotts, Putin’s War and Oligarch Roman Abramovich

IndieWire. “I had to say, ‘F— the war, I hate you [Russian president Vladimir Putin], bye.’ You can’t be silent about this war.”Serebrennikov himself had been in hot water with Russian authorities back in 2017, when he was convicted of embezzlement through his theater company and banned from leaving the country — a decision which outraged human rights groups who denounced the charge as falsified.

Nick Holdsworth European Film Academy president Agnieszka Holland has criticized the Cannes Film Festival for welcoming a Russian movie to the main competition.The Polish-born director – who fled to France in 1981 when Communist authorities imposed martial law – said now was the time to stand up to Russian aggression in Ukraine.That demanded a total ban on Russian cultural products in Europe, she said in Cannes on Saturday.The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker slammed the festival’s inclusion of Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Tchaikovsky’s Wife.”“If it were up to me, I would not include Russian films in the official program of the festival – even if Kirill Serebrennikov is such a talented artist,” the 73 year old filmmaker said. Speaking in Cannes at an industry roundtable on supporting the Ukrainian film industry at a time of war, Holland added: “Unfortunately my bad feelings were confirmed by his words.

Christopher Vourlias One day after dissident Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, members of the Ukrainian film industry took to the Croisette to call for a total boycott of Russian movie. Meanwhile, just steps away in the Palais des Festivals, the director’s long-awaited return to cinema’s grandest stage was overshadowed by questions about the festival’s controversial selection and over the film’s financial ties to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.Speaking at a politically charged press conference on Thursday, Serebrennikov described Russia’s war in Ukraine as a “total catastrophe” but rejected calls for a boycott of Russian film.

Tchaikovsky’s Wife filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov, a Russian dissident was grilled, by the global press at Cannes over the pic being bankrolled by oligarch financing in particular Roman Abramovich, as well as the notion of the world’s boycott against Russia.

Returning to Cannes a year after his feverish drama “Petrov’s Flu” hit the Croisette, Kirill Serebrennikov can finally attend the festival in person after recently being free from years of house arrest. Debuting in competition, his latest offering, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” is a slow-burn historical drama that never manages to escape from being a bore despite its seemingly intriguing premise.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticBack when art house movies played full-time in art houses, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” at least on paper, might have seemed a film of middlebrow commercial hooks — the sort of movie that would have slipped into the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York and played there comfortably for a month or so. The first hook, of course, is Tchaikovsky himself, the Russian composer who created works of such timeless and popular beauty that he is always in danger, in an odd way, of being underrated, like the Spielberg of longhairs.

CANNES, France -- The last two times the Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov had films playing at the Cannes Film Festival, he couldn't attend. He was under a travel ban in Russia as part of a conviction for fraud in what was widely protested as unwarranted repression of the arts in Russia.

Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Frémaux took part in a ‘meet the press’ session with journalists in Cannes yesterday afternoon.

Vladimir Putin has been seen manically shuffling his feet and looking frail during a meeting with a head of state, while a body language expert claims he looks “astonishingly weakened”.

Christopher Vourlias As the war in Ukraine approaches a grim, three-month mile marker, and the Russian military continues its relentless onslaught, the harsh crackdown on domestic opposition by the Putin regime has left a beleaguered film industry pondering its next steps. Many Russian filmmakers fear they’ll have no choice but to toe the party line, or to flee a country that is increasingly being shut out of the international community.Two-time Oscar nominee Alexander Rodnyansky (“Leviathan,” “Loveless”), the Kyiv-born producer who has called Russia home for nearly three decades, left Moscow on March 1 after being tipped off that his opposition to the war had landed him in the government’s crosshairs.

Ben Whishaw is to lead Limonov, The Ballad of Eddie, a feature from Kirill Serebrennikov, the Russian filmmaker whose Tchaikovsky’s Wife will play at Cannes.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentVersatile British actor Ben Whishaw, best known globally for playing Q in five James Bond films, has been cast in what’s bound to be the one of the most complex roles of his career.The actor will play the titular character in “Limonov, The Ballad of Eddie,” a new English-language film by revered Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov (“Petrov’s Flu,” “Leto”), about radical Russian poet and political dissident Eduard Limonov.The film, which will be presented as a promo reel to buyers in Cannes on May 17, is inspired by the best-selling novel “Limonov” by French writer and director Emmanuelle Carrère, which was translated in 35 countries.“Limonov” delves into the story of Eduard Limonov, who lived many lives. He was an underground writer in the Soviet Union who escaped to the U.S.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentIconoclastic Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov (“Leto,” “Petrov’s Flu”) will be unveiling footage in Cannes from his new work-in-progress film “Limonov, the Ballad of Eddie,” starring Ben Whishaw as radical Russian poet and dissident Eduard Limonov and Viktoria Miroshnichenko (“Beanpole”) as his wife Elena.Serebrennikov, who will coming to Cannes with his latest completed work “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” premiering in competition, was shooting “Limonov” in Russia when the war broke out. The director has since been able to leave the country and will complete the rest of the shoot in Europe.A “Limonov” promo reel will be unspooled for buyers in Cannes on May 17.