(Cannes) Representatives of the Ukrainian cinema demanded Thursday in Cannes the total exclusion of Russian films from the international market, including those of Kirill Serebrennikov, the day after the opening by the latter, breaking with the regime, of the competition.
Updated yesterday at 12:03 p.m.
“We really believe that everything Russian should be erased,” Ukrainian film producer Andrew Fesiak told AFP at a conference on “Russian propaganda” hosted by the American pavilion at the Film Market. .
“Russian filmmakers cannot pretend that everything is fine and that they have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said, “at a time when Ukrainian filmmakers are being forced to stop making films because ‘they must either flee to save their lives or take up arms’.
About the film’s presence in competition Tchaikovsky’s wifehe felt that his director “Serebrennikov is not an opponent, not at all”, recalling that “his whole career was financed by money from the Russian government”.
“The film was financed by independent Russian companies, private funds,” defended the Russian director to AFP Thursday afternoon.
“I totally understand why they say what they say, because they are in a terrible situation […] for them it is even difficult to hear Russian spoken,” he replied to his Ukrainian detractors, “but excluding Russian culture would be a huge mistake.”
The Cannes Film Festival has decided not to host any official Russian representation or Russians who defend the Kremlin line on Ukraine. But, on the same line as the other major world cultural events, its general delegate Thierry Frémaux defended Monday before journalists the idea of welcoming Russian dissidents: “there are Russian artists, journalists, who have left Russia . Kirill Serebrennikov is a man who considered that if he did not leave Russia, he was complicit in this war”.
Also a director, Serebrennikov is now based in Berlin. He had told AFP at the end of April that he had left his native Russia for a matter of “conscience”.
Mr. Frémaux had clarified on Monday that the idea of a “total boycott” had been requested “not by the Ukrainian authorities, but by ultras, people who are very radical”. “It is a position that I can understand […] because these are people who are under the bombs, ”he admitted.
In a gallery of World, Alexandre Rodnianski, Ukrainian film producer who worked for twenty years in Russia, protested against the idea of a “boycott”, assuring that “the selections of the biggest film festivals have always included honest testimonies on the current state of affairs in Russia” and that “in the lives of those who committed the Butcha massacre, the role of culture was more than minimal. It was propaganda television that brought them up”.
“Today, only the authentic Russian culture can serve as a support to help change the country”, concludes Rodnianski.