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Russian Filmmakers Rejoining the Global Film Scene Amid Ukraine War Controversy
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In Short: Despite controversy over Ilya Khrzhanovsky's 'DAU' at the Venice Film Festival, Russian filmmakers are increasingly being welcomed back to top film festivals, signaling a gradual thaw in cultural relations.
Despite controversy over Ilya Khrzhanovsky's 'DAU' at the Venice Film Festival, Russian filmmakers are increasingly being welcomed back to top film festivals, signaling a gradual thaw in cultural relations. Top film festivals have increasingly embraced Russian filmmakers in the wake of the war in Ukraine, with Russian-born directors scooping prizes at Cannes and Venice in recent years. While relations with Moscow remain frosty for much of the world, Russian filmmakers are gradually coming in from the cold, with some fleeing in protest of the Kremlin's war machine and others finding new homes in exile communities from Tbilisi to Paris.
In the past year alone, Russian-born directors have scooped prizes in Venice (Nastia Korkia’s “Short Summer”) and Cannes (Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Minotaur”), while Khrzhanovsky is joined on the Lido by fellow exile Victor Kossakovsky, whose latest documentary, “Holly Wood Dust,” premieres out of competition. Though filmed in Latvia, his Cannes Grand Prix-winning “Minotaur” is as scathing a portrait of Russian society under Putin as the director’s previous works.
Khrzhanovsky stresses to Variety that their involvement in his decades-spanning project ended years ago; his Venice-bound film is a German production, co-produced with France and Sweden, and has received no Russian funding for seven years, according to the director. For other filmmakers, the westward flight has offered an opportunity for reinvention, with some finding new homes and opportunities in exile communities.
Though the Oscar-nominated Kossakovsky (“Gunda”) and Khrzhanovsky both left Russia in the 2000s, a broader exodus began not long after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in February 2022. Whether fleeing in protest of the Kremlin’s war machine or out of fear of the brutal crackdown on dissent that quickly followed, many of Russian cinema’s most prominent voices left the country, forging exile communities from Tbilisi to Paris, from Berlin to L.A.
What's confirmed
What's still developing
- Coming on the heels of a recent controversy surrounding the Venice Art Biennale’s decision to mount shows by Russian and Israeli artists, the “DAU” dust-up speaks to a larger question hanging over film festivals, cultural institutions and other events that, in the immediate aftermath of Russia ’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, largely heeded calls for a boycott of Russian cultural exports.
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Sources
- Varietylink