(Cannes) At the very moment when the posthumous documentary was screened in world premiere on Thursday Mariupolis 2 of the filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravicius, assassinated a few weeks ago by the Russian army, the Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov appeared at a press conference, in a room next to the Palais des Festivals, to talk about his film Tchaikovsky’s wife.
Posted at 5:49 p.m.
“Everything that is Russian must be erased,” Ukrainian film producer Andrew Fesiak told Agence France-Presse in the wake of a conference on “Russian propaganda” at the American pavilion. Film market. “Serebrennikov should have made the decision on his own not to participate in the Cannes Film Festival,” said Kyiv International Film Festival director Andriy Khalpakhchi.
This shows how Cannes was under high political tension on Thursday. Kirill Serebrennikov, who denounced the invasion of Ukraine after climbing the steps, very sober, of the official screening of his film the day before, is the only Russian filmmaker selected at the Cannes Film Festival this year.
His case is special. He was under house arrest in Moscow from 2018 for his support of the LGBTQ+ movement, which prevented him from accompanying his two previous films, selected in competition, to Cannes. Just before the war, he was sentenced to parole and preferred to go into exile in Berlin at the start of the war.
On the other hand, his most recent film was partly financed by a private foundation which belongs to the oligarch Roman Abramovich, famous close to Vladimir Putin. Which makes him suspect in the eyes of part of the Ukrainian cinema industry.
Wearing a cap and slightly smoky glasses, Serebrennikov had to answer, unsurprisingly, more questions about the war than about his film, which deals with the short facade marriage between Tchaikovsky, who was gay, and Antonina Miloukova.
“Whether we like it or not, voluntarily or involuntarily, we are linked to these events,” said the theater and cinema director. As Adorno said, can we do poetry after Auschwitz? »
” Do part of it ”
Some had already been indignant that Kirill Serebrennikov, one of the most prominent Russian artists of the time, was hosted in competition at Cannes, unlike the Ukrainians Sergei Loznitsa and Maksim Nakonechnyi, whose films are presented in other sections. The Ukrainian Film Academy notably demanded an outright boycott of Tchaikovsky’s wife.
“I completely understand the people who demand that there be this boycott. For them, it is extremely painful and absolutely unbearable,” notes Kirill Serebrennikov. “But calling for a boycott of culture solely on the basis of one’s nationality, which has been done in the past, I cannot accept. Culture is the air, it is the water, it is the clouds. I think we should avoid boycotting Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, and a fortiori Tchaikovsky. We must not deprive people of culture, of music, of theatre, of cinema. That’s what makes them alive. »
The general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, Thierry Frémaux, also earlier this week said he understood the point of view of those who are under the bombs on a daily basis. “We must try to make a distinction between the Russians who take risks in resisting the official word. We try to behave as best as possible to try to be fair,” he said on Monday, recalling that the Festival has banned any official Russian delegation from Cannes, but not its dissident artists.
“Serebrennikov is not an opponent, not at all,” said Andrew Fesiak. His whole career was funded by Russian government money. While the Russian artist acknowledged on Thursday that he received state subsidies for some of his older works (before 2014), he clarified that at that time, “having the logo of the Ministry of Culture was not ashamed “.
The filmmaker also defended Roman Abramovich, owner until very recently of the English soccer club Chelsea. “He’s been a patron for a long time and his foundation has helped fund a lot of auteur films in Russia. Like President Zelensky, I want the sanctions against him to be lifted. He can be the go-between for future talks between Ukrainians and Russians. »
Serebrennikov did not, however, in any way defend Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russian culture has always promoted human values, the fragility of man, the compassion one can have towards people’s souls, towards little people. The culture has always been anti-war. Because war wants to destroy what I just talked about. Word culture and the word war are antagonists. »
During the press conference of Tchaikovsky’s wifethe Festival presented a film that it added to its programming at the last moment: Mariupolis 2 of the Lithuanian documentarian Mantas Kvedaravicius, killed less than two months ago by the Russian army, at only 45 years old.
PHOTO ERIC GAILLARD, REUTERS
The producer of Mariupolis 2 Nadia Turincev, co-director Hanna Bilobrova and editor Dounia Sichov
Kvedaravicius’ film, which depicts the daily life under the bombs in Mariupol of the inhabitants of this besieged city, was finished by his Ukrainian companion Hanna Bilobrova and his editor Dounia Sichov. The filmmaker and anthropologist had returned to Mariupol at the start of the invasion in February to find people who had taken part in his first documentary on the city, during the Donbass war, in 2014.
Kirill Serebrennikov, who is 52 years old, must go to the Festival d’Avignon in July The black monk by Chekhov, before finishing the shooting of his next film, an adaptation of the novel by Emmanuel Carrère, Limonovabout a Russian character as fascinating as it is controversial.
“If there weren’t this war, we would all be much better off, and me first, because we would all be more carefree,” he replied to a journalist of Ukrainian origin, who asked him if he was happy to finally meet in person at the Cannes Film Festival. The fact that there are bombs falling on cities makes me not completely happy to be here. »
Turning on the TV in my hotel room on Thursday evening, I stumbled upon a long report by the Russian government-owned continuous news channel Rossiya 24 on Tchaikovsky’s wife. There was talk of reviews of the film in American trade magazines variety and HollywoodReporter, three experts were interviewed (I couldn’t tell you more; my Russian being a bit rusty), but no sound extract from Kirill Serebrennikov’s press conference was broadcast. Obviously.
I wonder what the reaction of the Russian authorities would be if the work of an exiled dissident won the Palme d’Or this year. And I dare not imagine the outcry in Ukraine…