This year Russia sent six films to the Cannes Film Festival, four in competitors and two in non-competitive categories. And the filmmakers brought home three awards: the Grand Prix for the movie “Hytti Nro. 6” by Juho Kuosmanen co-produced with Russia– shared with the movie “Ghahreman” (Hero) by the Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi; the Grand Prix in Un Certain Regard section provided to Kira Kovalenko for “Unclenching the Fists”; and the CST Award for Technical Artistry to Vladislav Opelyants for his deal with Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Petrov’s Flu.”
The cinematographer formerly worked together with Serebrennikov on his movies “Summer” as well as “The Student.”
Cannes, the pandemic and also Sebrennikov’s influenza
In some ways, this year’s celebration looked like it was happening in a different time period. “La Croisette,” the beach promenade in Cannes, was full of celebrities from the movie celebration without protective masks– similar to the days prior to the pandemic.
The pandemic was existing at the celebration– in reality, it seemed to be one of the celebrities of the movie “Petrov’s Flu” by Kirill Serebrennikov. Thirty-year-old Petrov functions as an auto mechanic during the day and also as an illustrator in the evening. It’s the end of the year and also Petrov has the influenza. He coughings on a bus and he falls under an ecstasy in a crowd of people in which, reality, visions and also fantasies all fuse together. His other half, a curator, is also sick, only her dreams are about sex and also vengeance. Petrov contaminates his son, who is about to attend the school New Year’s event, and keeps in mind the party he as well mosted likely to in the Soviet 1970s. That celebration has remaining in his memory in addition to a stream of experiences regarding the past, present, fatality and life.
The movies of the primary competitors, which are held in the movie theater “Lumière,” are usually separated into day and night premieres. Evening screenings are believed to be preferred. The testing of Serebrennikov’s film occurred throughout the day, but that didn’t stop the target market from crowding the cinema.
Serebrennikov has actually not been allowed to leave Russia since 2017 and also he might not accompany his movie to Cannes. On the red rug the movie existed by stars that executed the vital duties– Yuri Kolokolnikov, Chulpan Khamatova, Ivan Dorn, Yulia Peresild and also Yura Borisov, in addition to producer Ilya Stewart.
A scene from”Petrov’s Flu “© Hype Film Before the best, General Director of Roskino Yevgenia Markova wrote on Instagram: “The only film completely made in Russia in the main competitors of the Cannes Film Festival. The show has started … Good good luck.” In a sense, nevertheless, Kirill Serebrennikov still attended his very own premiere. Participants of the film crew went out to the photographers putting on badges with a portrait of the director. These very same accessories were seen on the imaginative director of the Cannes film event Thierry Frémaux as well as the celebration’s head of state Pierre Lescure. The audience greeted the team with an applause.
“Petrov’s Flu” is Kirill Serebrennikov’s first attribute movie since his release from home apprehension. It plunges the audience right into an environment of fascism, both physical and also spiritual. It was recorded before the coronavirus showed up, it catches the mood of a country in the middle of a pandemic and also a nation captured up in a collective ordeal. He explained his purposes to the global continue Zoom: “The movie may look metaphorical, yet it has absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic. The plot is based upon the novel of Alexei Salnikov called ‘The Petrovs In and also Around the Flu.’ Russian literary works is recognized for being pythonic, often associated with the principles of surrealism, absurdity and also destiny. Russians feel comfortable with this, and so the duration of absurdity as well as chaos which pertained to Russia with the pandemic was rather familiar to us.”
The movie is practically two and a half hours long. When the hallucinations of the lead characters became extremely disorderly, a few of the audience began to leave. Most of the audiences remained until the end. Point of views amongst global reporters were divided. For Tod MacCarthy (Deadline) the film really felt “like enduring a physical attack in a dark street, or having a tons of rubbish obstructed down your throat as well as piled on top of you until you just can not take it anymore.” Yet Paolo Meregetti (Corriere della Sera) saw in the film “the charm of the Russian soul, with its melancholy and interest, it’s dreams and also readiness to jeopardize.”
Opelyants was provided the award by the Higher Technical Commission of the event “for his creativity in making us really feel the characters’ fevered state.”