Russian Directors Confront Fleeing Putin’s War and Defy Calls for Russia Film Boycott

Ray Liotta after it was reported the actor died suddenly on Thursday (26 May). He was 67.

Swedish director Ruben Östlund‘s already won one Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; in 2017 for “The Square.” And while he’s back in Cannes again this year with “Triangle Of Sadness” to try and win another, he already has his next film in mind, with Woody Harrelson set to star for him again. READ MORE: ‘Triangle Of Sadness’ Review: Ruben Östland’s Falters In This Broad Class Satire [Cannes] In an interview with Variety, Östlund gave details about the new project, including its title and premise.

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.

Rishi Sunak is facing demands to increase social security benefits now to help those struggling the with cost of living crisis.

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.

Christopher Vourlias Despite widespread calls to boycott Russian cinema in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, the Cannes Film Festival struck an uneasy compromise by banning state delegations and Russians with ties to President Vladimir Putin while allowing individual filmmakers to attend.It’s a decision iconoclastic Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov was quick to support on the eve of the world premiere of his latest feature, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” which bows in competition on May 18.The director was a no-show at his last two Cannes premieres due in no small part to a history of provocation and dissent against the Russian government. But Serebrennikov – who after a nearly five-year legal ordeal learned on March 28 that he could leave Russia a free man – insists that the type of subversive cinema he creates should be separated from pro-Kremlin propaganda and the “paranoid ideology” of the Putin regime. “Russian culture is about the fragility of life.

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

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 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.

As Russian president Vladimir Putin was preparing to address the nation Monday morning during the annual Victory Day parade commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, local television menus were reportedly hacked with program descriptions on smart TVs replaced by a message reading, “The blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of murdered children is on your hands. TV and the authorities are lying. No to war.”