Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov has premiered three films in Cannes competition, but walked the red carpet at the festival for the first time this week. In 2017, Serebrennikov was convicted by Russian authorities of an embezzlement scheme associated with his theater company and banned from leaving the country, a decision that angered human rights groups who alleged the charges were fake. When the sentence was lifted at the start of this year, Serebrennikov resettled in Germany while finishing his new drama, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” just in time for the film to play at Cannes.
Sitting on a balcony at the festival the day after his premiere, Serebrennikov said that even though leaving Russia meant that he had to abandon his 90-year-old father, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine expedited the filmmaker’s decision to move away as soon as the law allowed for it. “If you live inside the war, and you...
Sitting on a balcony at the festival the day after his premiere, Serebrennikov said that even though leaving Russia meant that he had to abandon his 90-year-old father, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine expedited the filmmaker’s decision to move away as soon as the law allowed for it. “If you live inside the war, and you...
- 5/20/2022
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
The Cannes Film Festival has been careful to steer clear of Russian participation this year, barring “official Russian delegations” and “anyone linked to the Russian government” and also declining to credential many Russian journalists. That puts a clear focus on director Kirill Serebrennikov, whose “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” is the only Russian film in the festival’s official selection.
And when you consider that Serebrennikov had publicly criticized Vladimir Putin’s government in the past and had been placed under house arrest on what some say were trumped-up fraud charges, you’d figure that his presence in the festival probably means that he’s bringing a film that wags a finger at the country where he no longer lives.
But instead, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” which premiered on Wednesday as part of the festival’s Main Competition, is set in the late 19th century, toward the end of a different Russian empire, which means...
And when you consider that Serebrennikov had publicly criticized Vladimir Putin’s government in the past and had been placed under house arrest on what some say were trumped-up fraud charges, you’d figure that his presence in the festival probably means that he’s bringing a film that wags a finger at the country where he no longer lives.
But instead, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” which premiered on Wednesday as part of the festival’s Main Competition, is set in the late 19th century, toward the end of a different Russian empire, which means...
- 5/18/2022
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
It’s hard to imagine that anyone could make another movie about 19th century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that’s as febrile and virtuosic as Ken Russell’s “The Music Lovers,” but dissident filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov — freshly released from his Putin-ordered house arrest, but still awaiting trial on ludicrous charges of fraud — has risen to the challenge with his usual aplomb, orchestrating
Then again, Serebrennikov’s film isn’t really about the mercurial gay man who wrote “Swan Lake.” As you might be able to deduce from its title, the morbidly opulent “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” is more interested in the obsessive music student who married him. Social conventions of the time are sufficient to explain how Antonina Miliukova remained oblivious to — or in semi-denial of — her husband’s unyielding sexual orientation (even after he set his bed on fire in order to get her out of it), but Serebrennikov...
Then again, Serebrennikov’s film isn’t really about the mercurial gay man who wrote “Swan Lake.” As you might be able to deduce from its title, the morbidly opulent “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” is more interested in the obsessive music student who married him. Social conventions of the time are sufficient to explain how Antonina Miliukova remained oblivious to — or in semi-denial of — her husband’s unyielding sexual orientation (even after he set his bed on fire in order to get her out of it), but Serebrennikov...
- 5/18/2022
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
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