News

Yura Borisov, who landed a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his critically acclaimed turn alongside Mikey Madison in Sean Baker’s “Anora,” has been officially cast in Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming feature “Artificial.”

The film, which is set up at Amazon MGM, is described as a “comedic drama set in the world of artificial intelligence.” Simon Rich wrote the script and will produce alongside Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford as well as Jennifer Fox.

Borisov is one of the biggest stars in his native Russia with more than 50 credits to his name, including “Captain Volkonogov Escaped” and Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Petrov’s Flu.” He first rose to prominence to Western audiences as one of the leads in the Cannes-bowing Grand Prix winner “Compartment Number 6,” which saw him earn a nomination for best actor at the European Film Awards.

But it was his quiet performance (and his first English speaking role) as Igor,...

Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov, whose latest feature, “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” debuts May 20 in the Cannes Premiere section of the Cannes Film Festival, has justice on his mind.

His latest film, adapted from the best-selling French novel by Olivier Guez, follows the notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who found refuge in South America at the end of WWII and was never captured. He died in Brazil in 1979 without having been judged for his crimes.

It is a subject that strikes home for the director, who left his native Russia shortly after the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Asked if he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin might similarly elude justice once the war finally ends, Serebrennikov insists: “I can’t be a prophet.”

“I know that history is like this: Sometimes, people are dying in wars and the people who started the war have no responsibility,” the director tells Variety.

[Editor’s note: This interview was originally published on October 18, 2024. For his work in “Anora,” Yura Borisov is now nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, one of six nominations for the film.]

Casting is Sean Baker’s great skill. He casts all his own films, walking through the world looking for talent to populate his stories. On his Palme d’Or winner “Anora,” Baker had characters in mind before he finished writing the script. He offered the roles of Anora to Mikey Madison and Russian muscleman Igor to Yura Borisov, who waited some six months before they got to read the final screenplay.

Baker saw the Russian actor for the first time in “Compartment Number 6” and “Petrov’s Flu.” “Those films were playing at Cannes the year that I had ‘Red Rocket’ there,” said Baker at Telluride. He called Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen and asked him how it was to work with Borisov. “He said, ‘He’s the best guy in the world.

The notoriously unpredictable and always confusing Gotham Awards revealed their nominations for the upcoming 34th gala, with Sean Baker’s Anora leading the pack. Anora earned four nominations: Best Feature, Best Director, Outstanding Lead Performance for Mikey Madison, and—perhaps most exciting for the team—Outstanding Supporting Performance for Yura Borisov, who has been on a strong streak this decade with roles in Compartment Number 6, Petrov’s Flu, and Captain Volkonogov Escaped. The Palme d’Or winning film clean up in all three major categories while All We Imagine as Light, Nickel Boys and I Saw the TV Glow are also in the mix with multiple nominations.…...

Europe’s Ace Producers network has selected 18 international producers for Ace Series Special, its workshop for understanding the series production landscape.

Selected producers include Razor Film producer Roman Paul, with Ian Iqbal Rashid’s project Afterlives, based on the 2020 historical fiction work by Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Scroll down for the full list of selected producers

Paul is a co-producer on Cannes 2024 title Santosh, 2021’s Petrov’s Flu and 2020’s Oscar-nominated Quo Vadis, Aida?, and produced Mia Hansen-Love’s 2022 One Fine Morning.

Also selected from Germany is Harry Floter of Germany’s 2Pilots Filmproduction, with Julia Klier’s project Semis Trail.

At a wake for the murder of Russian journalist and activist Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead in 2006 in the elevator of her apartment block in Moscow, French writer Emmanuel Carrère spotted a familiar silhouette. Though born Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko, by the mid-2000s “Limonov” had lived a dozen lives. A poet, editor, and politician who’d recently finished a two-year stint in prison on terrorism chargers, Limonov was a man who embodied all the contradictions of the 20th century, a greater-than-life iconoclast and extremist whose existence had unraveled as a tumultuous cavalcade of U-turns, aliases, literary aspirations. and political intrigue. He’d been a factory worker in the Ussr; an exile, hobo, butler, and budding novelist in New York; a successful author in Paris; and finally, by the time Carrère came across him, a Bolshevik nostalgist who’d been a vocal supporter of Serbian expansionism during the 1990s Balkan Wars (here...

by Cláudio Alves

Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is a body horror shocker.

Half of the Cannes Main Competition has screened, and it seems we're in a year of big swings and even bigger faceplants. Divisive titles aplenty, the most acclaimed films of the festival appear to be located in parallel sections rather than Thierry Frémaux's selection. Even so, Jia Zhangke's Caught by the Tides has confirmed itself as the critics' favorite, though that only extends to writers already fond of the director's oeuvre. The documentary-fiction hybrid made no new converts. Jacques Audiard dazzled audiences with the trans-themed Mexican musical Emilia Perez, and while some critics are ecstatic, others loathe the thing. Reactions are more pointedly adverse to Kirill Serebrennikov's Limonov biopic, while Coralie Fargeat's The Substance has elicited equal pans and praise. Some folks online are trying to characterize the body horror's critical divide as a battle of the sexes,...

Thierry Frémaux sure does like mister Kirill Serebrennikov. Since showcasing The Student in 2016’s Un Certain Regard section, the Russian filmmaker (in exile) has been a fixture in the competition section (there was even the rumor he might showcase his two of his 2024 releases) with 2018’s Leto, 2021’s Petrov’s Flu and 2022’s Tchaikovsky’s Wife. In what was a complicated shoot due to the war, Liminov: The Ballad stars Ben Whishaw as Limonov.

Gist: Based on the novel by Emmanuel Carrère, this is about the revolutionary militant, a thug, an underground writer, a butler to a millionaire in Manhattan.…...

Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov (“Leto,” “Petrov’s Flu,” “Tchaikovsky’s Wife”) is back in the Cannes competition with “Limonov,” an epic about Russian punk poet Eduard Limonov that the director describes as “probably the most complicated project in my life.”

Based on the best-selling book by Emmanuelle Carrere, “Limonov” delves into the story of its titular character who lived many lives. He was an underground writer in the Soviet Union who escaped to the U.S. where he became a punk-poet and also a butler to a millionaire in Manhattan. “Eddie” then became a literary sensation in Paris before returning to Russia where he morphed into a charismatic dissident party leader with rock star status, only to be incarcerated by Vladimir Putin.

Serebrennikov was shooting “Limonov” in Moscow on Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. The director – who himself has had troubles with Putin – was able to leave the country and eventually complete...

Acclaimed auteurs Francis Ford Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Paolo Sorrentino and Andrea Arnold are among the filmmakers set to compete for the coveted Palme d’Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival.

A total of 19 features were revealed today (April 11) that will play in Competition at the festival, set to run May 14-25.

Rarely a festival to veer far from familiar names, the Competition line-up is dominated by directors who have been selected multiple times for Cannes.

They include US filmmaker Coppola with sci-fi epic Megalopolis, which stars Adam Driver and is set in a future version of New York City following a disaster.

Sovereign is proud to announce that award-winning Mexican director Amat Escalante’s powerful thriller Lost In The Night received its UK premiere at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival, as part of the ‘Thrill’ section, and now the film is available to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.

From acclaimed Mexican director Amat Escalante, following Heli, for which he won Best Director at Cannes in 2013, and The Untamed, which won him the Best Director prize at Venice in 2016, comes Lost In The Night, a taut, engrossing thriller that blends traditional elements of Latin American cinema with astute social commentary on Mexican society and contemporary influencer culture.

The film, which premiered at Cannes this year, stars Juan Daniel García Treviño (Narcos México), and Latin American influencer superstar Ester Expósito, who has 27 million followers, and features a superb score by Stranger Things composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein.

The film...

Kirill Serebrennikov, the celebrated Russian playwright and director whose last three films competed at Cannes, is set to create and direct a sensual, gothic TV adaptation of “The Phantom of the Opera,” Gaston Leroux’s 19th century novel.

Serebrennikov’s TV debut, the subversive six-part miniseries will be shot in English and is being produced by Aude Albano at Pathé, in association with Ilya Stewart at Hype Studios. The latter has collaborated with Serebrennikov on his critically acclaimed movies, including “Leto,” “Petrov’s Flu” and “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” all of which have played at Cannes.

Described as a “riveting psychological thriller with horrific undertones” by the production team, the story of “The Phantom of the Opera” revolves around an up-and-coming artist, Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a disfigured musical genius, a monster haunting the Paris Opera House. Known as the Phantom of the Opera, the maleficent figure is a controlling,...

After perusing our massive, 60-film, two-part fall preview, there shouldn’t be too many surprises on our first monthly highlights of the season. While September is often thought of as prelude to awards-season favorites, there are also a number of stellar, smaller-scale offerings we hope don’t get lost in the cracks––including a rather strong honorable mentions list to follow. Check out our picks below.

12. Petrov’s Flu (Kirill Serebrennikov; Sept. 23)

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov has been invited to back-to-back Cannes, premiering Petrov’s Flu last year and Tchaikovsky’s Wife this year. The former is finally getting a U.S. release, and Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Petrov’s Flu opens on a stuffy commute—a Moscow bus in the early years of post-Soviet Russia. The eponymous protagonist is already bent over a handrail, stricken with his affliction. The mood is fevered, almost circus-like, the lighting like pea soup. In a moment of madness,...

Producer Ilya Stewart has launched an independent studio based in Europe that will operate on a global scale, working with international talent and focusing on English-language feature films and television series, Variety can exclusively reveal.

Hype Studios is the new venture from Stewart, the formerly Moscow-based producer who in recent years has been a fixture at the Cannes Film Festival, where his collaborations with Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov, including “Petrov’s Flu” and “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” have premiered in competition.

Among the co-productions with American and European partners currently on Hype Studios’ slate is Zach Wigon’s “Sanctuary,” starring Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott, which premieres as a Special Presentation next month at the Toronto International Film Festival and was produced with Rumble Films and Mosaic Films, along with Charades. Also on the slate is Pietro Marcello’s French-language “Scarlet,” produced in partnership with CG Cinéma’s Charles Gillibert, which opened this...

Kirill Serebrennikov is already a director of note in his native Russia. Now that his last two films have competed for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in back-to-back years, he may also get the recognition he deserves stateside. His 2021 Cannes film, “Petrov’s Flu,” finally gets its US theatrical release this September, courtesy of Strand Releasing.

Read More: ‘Petrov’s Flu’: Kiril Serebrennikov’s Contagious, Crazed Drama Is Unhingedly Creative [Cannes Review]

Based on Alexy Salnikov‘s novel “The Petrovs In And Around The Flu,” “Petrov’s Flu” is best described as a deadpan, hallucinatory romp around post-Soviet Russia.

Continue reading New ”Petrov’s Flu’ Trailer: Kirill Serebrennikov’s Russian Dramedy Finally Hits US Theaters On September 23 at The Playlist.

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov has been invited to back-to-back Cannes for his latest work, premiering Petrov’s Flu last year and Tchaikovsky’s Wife this year. The former is now finally getting a U.S. release this September, courtesy of Strand Releasing, and a new trailer has now arrived.

A deadpan, hallucinatory romp through post-Soviet Russia, see the film’s synopsis: “With the city in the throes of a flu epidemic, the Petrov family struggles through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fueled, icy fever dream of violence and tenderness, and where, beneath the layers of the ordinary, things turn out to be quite extraordinary. Part science fiction, mystery and dark comedy, this Cannes Film Festival entry is a unique hybrid of genres.”

Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Petrov’s Flu opens on a stuffy commute—a Moscow bus in the early years of post-Soviet Russia.

"Is it okay that we kidnapped a corpse?" Strand Releasing has unveiled an official US trailer for the Russian dark drama Petrov's Flu, described as a "deadpan, hallucinatory romp through post-Soviet Russia." This originally premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival last year, and has been on hold for release due to the war in Ukraine. But Cannes brought back Serebrennikov this year to show his next new film (Tchaikovsky's Wife) so that sort of cleared his name (despite his connection to oligarchs) and now they're going to release Petrov's Flu finally starting in the end of September at a few select art house cinemas. The film follows a day in the life of a comic book artist and his family in post-Soviet Russia. While suffering from the flu, Petrov is carried by his friend Igor on a long walk, drifting in and out of fantasy and reality. Very trippy. This stars Semyon Serzin,...

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...

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. “I fully understand people who are calling for boycotts. I understand them because they’re so pained, so hurt by what is happening in the country,” he said.

But efforts to ban a nation’s culture, he added, were an “impossible” feat: “I believe we shouldn’t boycott language,...

Kirill Serebrennikov, the director of Cannes competition title “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” and the only Russian director with a film in this year’s official festival, on Thursday called for world governments to lift sanctions on a Russian oligarch and film financier who has been reported to be helping the Ukraine war effort.

The oligarch is Roman Abramovich, who is behind the film fund Kinoprime that helped to finance both “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” and Serebrennikov’s prior film “Petrov’s Flu,” among other Russian art-house films. Serebrennikov, who said he did not receive money from the state to make “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” defended Abramovich’s work as saying that the films he funds are not propaganda movies but are “rather the contrary.”

“We have to lift the sanctions against Abramovich,” the director said during his Cannes press conference. “He helps modern art, and he has for a long time now. He’s a real patron...

Most films ask nothing of you. You simply press play and watch the story unfold, gleaning context as the filmmaker colors in their narrative. But the occasional movie demands prerequisites to appreciate. Think: Dušan Makavejev’s Man Is Not a Bird, or last year’s competition title Petrov’s Flu, Kirill Serebrennikov’s mind-numbing swan dive into the socio-political climate of post-Soviet Russia whose commentary nearly requires a Ph.D. to unpack. Marco Bellocchio’s Exterior Night hovers somewhere in-between.

It would help if the historical thriller came with the equivalent of a summer reading list, but there’s enough explanation to clue you in if you’re not brushed up on your 1970s Italian politics. Perhaps more important that the story is easy to get wrapped up in, a six-episode miniseries that feels like a brisk five-and-a-half hours. No doubt it will be richer the more you know, but Bellocchio––with co-writers Stefano Bises,...

Kirill Serebrennikov’s biographical drama received an average of 2.3.

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s Tchaikovsky’s Wife is the first title to take its place on Screen’s 2022 Cannes jury grid, dividing our critics.

The 19th-century biographical drama following the explosive relationship of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and his wife Antonina Miliukova received an average of 2.3 (with two reviews still outstanding), with five critics awarding it two (average).

Postif’s Michel Ciment awarded the film top marks with four stars (excellent) but The Telegraph critics Tim Robey and Robbie Collin gave it one star (poor).

Serebrennikov’s previous film Petrov’s Flu scored 2.3 on the 2021 Cannes jury grid,...

Kirill Serebrennikov’s biographical drama received an average of 2.3.

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s Tchaikovsky’s Wife is the first title to take its place on Screen’s 2022 Cannes jury grid, dividing our critics.

The 19th-century biographical drama following the explosive relationship of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and his wife Antonina Miliukova received an average of 2.3 (with two reviews still outstanding), with five critics awarding it two (average).

Postif’s Michel Ciment awarded the film top marks with four stars (excellent) but The Telegraph critics Tim Robey and Robbie Collin gave it one star (poor).

Serebrennikov’s previous film Petrov’s Flu scored 2.3 on the 2021 Cannes jury grid,...

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.

As opposed to channeling all of his energy into making a project entirely focused on the life and career of famed 19th-century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — “The Music Lovers” already exists for that — Serebrennikov instead, as the title suggests, puts all the attention on Antonina Miliukova, a music student who becomes fully consumed with her affections for Tchaikovsky and eventually marries him.

Continue reading ‘Tchaikovsky’s Wife’ Review: Kirill Serebrennikov’s Historical Melodrama Is a Repetitive Tale Of A Toxic Marriage [Cannes] at The Playlist.

The 2022 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or competition begins with Kirill Serebrennikov‘s Tchaikovsky’s Wife — his fourth consecutive feature to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival which makes it back to back years with Petrov’s Flu premiering in 2021. The Student (2016) was an Un Certain Regard selection and 2018’s Leto was his first time in competition.

Tchaikovsky’s Wife essentially tells the story of Antonina Miliukova’s not too healthy union with the great Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Odin Lund Biron). It’s a heightened drama and historical hypothesis that sees Miliukova (a truly committed performance by actress Alyona Mikhailova) spiral out of control offering self-adulation and exaggeratedly late accountability.…...

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...

With Ken Russell’s madly over-the-top The Music Lovers reassuringly tucked in dusty attic corners after 52 years, a fresh and notably inspired take on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s fraught marriage arrives in the churningly emotional and visually rich Tchaikovsky’s Wife.

Director Kirill Serebrennikov, whose most recent films were Leto and Petrov’s Flu, is currently in exile from his homeland following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Additional ill will at home surrounding the prominent theater and opera director’s new work stems from its exploration of the composer’s gay leanings, an officially taboo subject locally but one that will stir interest among significant audiences internationally.

By all accounts, Tchaikovsky’s intimate life was fraught, complicated and likely rooted in a need to at least appear to adhere to convention. Almost at once, the film pulls you into to swirl of musically driven movement, emotional instability and highly focused desire...

Back 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. Tchaikovsky’s short-lived marriage, to Antonina Miliukova, was both a disaster and a semi-scandal, but the time now feels ripe for a rediscovery of this tragic episode, which hinged on Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality and the fact that he agreed to marry as a desperate closeted strategic ploy. That the late 19th century was a time when even an artist of his magnitude could not live openly,...

Since co-founding Moscow-based production house Hype Film in 2011, Ilya Stewart and partner Murad Osmann – Variety Producers to Watch in 2018 – have grown the company from an award-winning commercial and music video producer into one of the most successful film production outfits in the country, thanks in no small part to their partnership with arthouse director and provocateur Kirill Serebrennikov.

After collaborating on his 2016 Un Certain Regard prize winner “The Student,” Serebrennikov and Stewart teamed up again on “Leto,” a rock drama which played in competition on the Croisette in 2018. Last year they competed again with “Petrov’s Flu,” a hallucinatory romp through a post-Soviet Russia in the grips of a mysterious flu pandemic.

Serebrennikov, however, was forced to sit out both premieres in the wake of his house arrest – and a subsequent travel ban – stemming from a 2017 charge of embezzlement that his supporters say was fabricated. Walking the red carpet ahead of the “Petrov’s Flu” debut,...

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.

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.

The film penned by Serebrennikov, Ben Hopkins and Cold War‘s Paweł Pawlikowski is inspired by Emmanuel Carrère’s best-selling novel and tells the story of Eduard Limonov’s life and journey through Russia, the U.S. and Europe during the second half of the 20th century.

Limonov was many things, a revolutionary militant, a thug, an underground writer, a butler to a millionaire in Manhattan, but also a switchblade-waving poet, a lover of beautiful women, a warmonger, a political agitator and a novelist who wrote of his own greatness.

Serebrennikov’s Tchaikovsky’s Wife (Zhena Chaikovskogo) is in competition at Cannes, the fourth from the Russian director following Petrov’s Flu last year, 2018’s Leto and 2016’s Uchenik.

The film is produced by Wildside...

Iconoclastic Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov 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.

Based on the best-selling book by Emmanuelle Carrere, “Limonov” depicts the adventures of non-conformist poet and provocateur Eduard Limonov, who grew up in what today is the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. He escaped from what was then the Soviet Union for the U.S., where he became a switchblade-waving punk poet,...

Versatile 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, 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. See interview with Serebrennikov.

“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. where he became a punk-poet and also a butler to a millionaire in Manhattan. “Eddie” then became...

The Ukrainian Institute has issued an official letter to the Cannes Film Festival and French director Michel Hazanavicius asking them to rename his opening night movie “Z (Comme Z),” which the org claims is a pro-war symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In Russia, “Z” is considered a pro-war symbol that has also been used in pro-Russian demonstrations across Europe. The symbol has recently been adopted by some Russian figures taking part in world events, such as gymnast Ivan Kuliak who, while in Qatar for a World Cup event, sported a “Z” on his chest while standing on a podium next to Ukrainian athlete Illia Kovtun. Last week, Lithuania’s parliament voted to ban public displays of the letter “Z” in protest of the ongoing war.

A letter sent to Cannes by the Ukrainian Institute, and seen by Variety, reads: “We consider that changing the title of the opening...

A few hours after unveiling Cannes Film Festival’s 2022 Official Selection on the Champs Elysees, artistic director Thierry Fremaux sat down with Variety to discuss the festival’s drive to not give in to calls for a cultural boycott of Russian films and filmmakers, efforts to have more female directors in competition, discussions to bring back streamers in a near future and what those rumors about David Lynch in the lineup were about. The all-star competition lineup of this upcoming 75th edition boasts no less than four Palme d’Or winning directors, including Japanese master Kore-eda Hirokazu (Japan) and Swedish helmer Ruben Ostlund (“Triangle of Sadness”), as well new films by David Cronenberg (“Crimes of the Future”), Kelly Reichardt (”Showing Up”), James Gray (“Armageddon Time”) and dissident Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov (“Tchaïkovski’s Wife”).

Congrats on putting together this wonderful lineup. I think it’s the most exciting Cannes lineup...

Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights to Alain Guiraudie’s “Nobody’s Hero” which is handled by Films du Losange and world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival.

The movie, which opened the Berlinale Panorama section, is set in Clermont-Ferrand revolves around Frederic, a 35 year-old man who falls in love with with a middle-aged sex worker who is married.

“Nobody’s Hero” marks the third collaboration between Strand and Guiraudie which began with the helmer’s most successful film “Stranger By The Lake,” followed by his Cannes Competition title, “Staying Vertical.”

“Alain has been a dear colleague to our company, and we are so happy to be working with him again on this wonderfully exuberant comedy that is not only funny, but humane and completely original,” said Strand Releasing’s Jon Gerrans who negotiated the deal with Alice Lesort for Films du Losange. Guiraudie previously contributed to Strand Releasing’s...

Kirill Serebrennikov, the prominent Russian director of film and theater, has had his widely-condemned fraud sentence commuted and has subsequently left the country.

On Monday, a Moscow court moved to cancel the three-year prison sentence and erase his criminal record after half of the term had passed without any parole violations, according to local reports. His travel ban has also been lifted.

A picture of Serebrennikov sporting an “I turn the TV off” t-shirt was then posted to social media on Tuesday, purportedly showing he had arrived in France after leaving Russia.

Deadline sources have confirmed that he is now in Germany where he is working on film and theater projects. It is unlikely that he will be returning to Russia any time soon, though the decision is not set in stone permanently.

Last year, Serebrennikov was unable to attend the Cannes premiere of his film Petrov’s Flu due to the travel ban.

Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov — the director of Cannes competition titles “Leto” and “Petrov’s Flu” — has left the country following the end of a three-year travel ban, and arrived in Paris on Sunday. He’s currently in Germany where he will be based for the foreseeable future, Variety has learned.

A picture of the iconoclastic Russian helmer popped up on social media on Wednesday. In the pic, Serebrennikov wears a T-shirt that reads “I turn the TV off,” which alludes to the propaganda flooding Russian TV since the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Serebrennikov was sentenced in June 2020 to a three-year suspended prison sentence and was also issued a fine over trumped-up charges of embezzlement. A Moscow court canceled the suspended sentence after questioning the filmmaker twice last week.

“The Russian government had already given him back his passport in January so that he could travel to Germany for a play,...

Chulpan Khamatova, a leading Russian actress who has also made several international film appearances, has given an interview saying that she has gone into exile in Latvia, following her country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Khamatova recorded an interview that was broadcast earlier this week on YouTube, explaining that she travelled to Riga on holiday several weeks ago with her daughters, but has decided to stay put rather than return to Russia.

“I thought at the start that I would just wait. Then I signed the petition against the war. And then it was made clear to me it would be undesirable for me to go back,” she said, according to RadioFreeEurope’s translation. “I know I am not a traitor. I love my motherland very much.”

Khamatova added that to make her return to Russia possible, she would either have to deny that a war was taking place or apologize...

The international sales sector is adjusting while Russian screens get local re-releases.

With Ukrainian filmmakers demanding a blanket ban of Russian cinema in “all its dimensions”, European sales agents are facing tough moral and financial dilemmas about Russian titles on their slates.

Meanwhile, in Russia itself, industry observers are warning of potential box office “catastrophe” following Hollywood’s decision to stop releases of its tentpole movies in the Russian market. The Batman had been due to go out on over 2,000 screens in Russia this weekend but its release has been pulled by Warner Bros and exhibitors are scrambling to find...

Multi-hyphenate Flying Lotus and his company Brainfeeder Films has linked with Paris-based Logical Pictures and XYZ Films for a multi-picture development deal covering a slate of films that the artist will produce and direct.

Logical Content Ventures, the co-production fund backed by Logical Pictures, will finance the development of the films, which will focus on genres in the horror, thriller and sci-fi universe. Logical also secured a first-look agreement to finance and produce. The slate will span multiple projects, with XYZ Films set to produce and handle sales.

The deal was negotiated by Frédéric Fiore and Grace Adams from Logical Pictures, and by Nate Bolotin, partner at XYZ Films, on behalf of Brainfeeder Films.

Flying Lotus, also known as Steven Ellison, is a genre-bending, Grammy Award-winning producer, composer, filmmaker and rapper. He founded Brainfeeder Records in 2008.

Since 2006, Ellison has released six studio albums and composed much of the music heard...

Osaka Asian Film Festival 2022 announces the members of the competition jury.

Competition Jury Members

Iijima Shuna (飯島珠奈) | Japan | Actress

Iijima is a bilingual Japanese actress. She is known for her leading role in Anshul Chauhan’s film “Bad Poetry Tokyo” (東京不穏詩/OAFF2018) for which she received Best Actress Award in international film festivals including Osaka Asian Film Festival. Her directorial debut, the short film “Natsuko”, will be screened at Oaff 2022 in the Indie Forum section.

Takei Miyuki (武井みゆき) | Japan | Representative of the film company Moviola

Takei founded the film company Moviola in 2000. They have distributed films directed by Wang Bing, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Yasmin Ahmad, Frederick Wiseman and others. Their next film set for distribution is “Petrov’s Flu”, directed by Kirill Serebrennikov.

Esther Yeung | Hong Kong | COO, We Pictures

Yeung has extensive experience in the field of international film sales, including serving as director of Asian acquisitions at Fortissimo Films, where...

The Cannes Film Festival has taken a position on the war in Ukraine, and will bar Russian delegations at its 75th edition this May.

“As the world has been hit by a heavy crisis in which a part of Europe finds itself in a state of war, the Festival de Cannes wishes to extend all its support to the people of Ukraine and all those who are in its territory,” reads a statement released on Tuesday. “However modest as it is, we join our voices with those who oppose this unacceptable situation and denounce the attitude of Russia and its leaders.

“During this winter of 2022, the Festival de Cannes has entered its preparation phase. Unless the war of assault ends in conditions that will satisfy the Ukrainian people, it has been decided that we will not welcome official Russian delegations nor accept the presence of anyone linked to the Russian government.

An open letter against the war in Ukraine has been signed by prominent Russian cinematographers, spearheaded by Fedor Lyass (“Hardcore Henry”).

The signatories include Roman Vasyanov, Mikhail Krichman, Pavel Kapinos (“Hardcore Henry”), Vladislav Opelyants and Pavel Fomintsev (“Unclenching the Fists”).

Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine began on Feb. 24, Russian filmmakers and animators have bravely rallied and spoken out against their government’s actions and have called upon the international community for support. In doing so, the signatories have put themselves at risk on both personal and professional levels. Alexander Rodnyansky, the two-time Oscar-nominated producer of “Leviathan,” “Loveless” told Variety last week that he felt “unbearably ashamed” and “incredibly, deeply sad” when news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine broke.

The letter’s full translated text and list of the signatories are below:

We, Russian cinematographers, demand a stop to military aggression against Ukraine, an immediate ceasefire, and a withdrawal...

Sovereign Distribution has launched a new label to develop action content for film and TV.

Action Xtreme will be headed up by writer and director Chee Keong Cheung, with Sovereign founder and CEO Andreas Roald joining the board. The label will join the U.K. outfit’s various other arms, which span film production, distribution, television, theater and music publishing.

The company has said Action Xtreme will “create content featuring spectacular physical action and stunts, with a targeted focus on grassroots talent growth, development and training, and a remit to develop franchisable content for a worldwide audience.”

Action Xtreme will develop talent and action-based content across feature films, TV series, graphic novels, novels, multi-platform computer games and merchandise. It will also tap into a U.K. fan base for action content via social media, as well as recruiting brand ambassadors and collaborating with prominent figures in the action industry.

Cheung...

In the early days of what we used to call “coronavirus” in March 2020, before we all became budding epidemiologists, people flocked to Steven Soderbergh’s eerily prophetic 2011 drama “Contagion” on streaming services. Within a month or so, the movie was propelled from the 270th slot to the second most watched film in the Warner Bros. library, according to numbers from iTunes.

Two years down the line, Covid-19, which shut down the world and altered our way of life, hasn’t yet made its way into many series and movies, apart from a handful of fleeting acknowledgements. (Berlin competition contender “Both Sides of the Blade” from Claire Denis and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar-nominated “Drive My Car” are examples.) For comparison, the Spanish Flu, which killed more than 50 million people worldwide over roughly two years following World War I, is still nearly invisible in popular culture to this day.

“There have been...

Romantic comedy ‘Marry Me’ and Oscar-nominated ‘Flee’ among other titles set for release.

All-star murder mystery Death On The Nile leads the new openers at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, which will also see a wide release for action thriller Uncharted, starring Tom Holland.

Released by the Walt Disney Studios, Death On The Nile opens in a hefty 718 sites – the widest release since October 2020, when James Bond blockbuster No Time To Die opened in a record 772 cinemas.

The Agatha Christie adaptation is a follow-up to Murder On The Orient Express, which opened on 624 sites and took £4.98m across its...

Two-time Berlinale prize winner Małgorzata Szumowska will write and direct “The Gambler Wife,” a revelatory portrait of novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s wife Anna Snitkina, to be produced by Russia’s Hype Film, Variety can reveal.

Adapted from Andrew D. Kaufman’s book “The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky,” the film tells the story of the courageous woman who saved the life of the Russian literary icon and, as the first Russian woman to found her own publishing house, became a pioneer in the country’s literary history.

Ilya Stewart of Hype Film will produce in collaboration with Polish production company Nowhere. Nick Shumaker of Anonymous Content will executive produce along with Hype Film’s Elizaveta Chalenko.

“As a young, troublemaking Polish girl, I became obsessed with the world of Dostoyevsky, his books, and his imprint on society,” said Szumowska, who’s...

The 11th annual First Look festival at the Museum of the Moving Image released its star-studded lineup February 7.

The festival, which is set to take place March 16–20 at the MoMI museum in Astoria, Queens, will open with the New York City premiere of Camera d’Or winner “Murina.” Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović was honored with the title at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival for Best First Feature, and the film is executive produced by Martin Scorsese.

“Murina” is a coming-of-age story set in a scenic coastal Croatian town. Also on March 16, Tsai Ming-Liang’s ode to Hong Kong, “The Night,” will host its New York premiere. Closing Night selection and 2021 Locarno Grand Prix winner “The Balcony Movie” finishes off the festival.

The First Look festival features “new and innovative international cinema.” Spotlight screenings include the New York premiere of “Zero Fucks Given,” starring Adèle Exarchopoulos as a flight attendant in crisis,...

Charades has come on board “Hit Big”, a dark humor-laced crime film set in Spain and directed by critically acclaimed Finnish filmmaker, Jukka-Pekka Valkeapaa (“They Have Escaped”).

Currently in post production, the film is being presented at the work-in-progress sidebar of Goteborg Festival’s Nordic Film Market. On the ground in Goteborg is Daniel Kuitunen, who is producing the movie through his Helsinki-based banner Komeetta.

“Hit Big” revolves around Marjaleena, a 60-year-old, boozed-up former beauty pageant star who left Finland for Spain’s Costa del Sol where she runs Bar Belle, once a popular spot for Finnish tourists, with her handyman Mikko. One day, they hear that Marjaleena’s husband, Worm, will be released after 20 years in prison and is planning a dream life with his cell-mate lover thanks to the stashed proceeds of a major heist. Feeling betrayed, Marjaleena sets off to get her share of the millions.

The...