CANNES”•A new film by the enfant terrible of Russian theater”•who is under house arrest in Moscow”•received a standing ovation and rave reviews Thursday after it was shown at the Cannes film festival.
The cast of Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Leto,” a fast-paced biopic of the Soviet-Korean rock legend Viktor Tsoi, were cheered as the movie premiered at the world’s top film festival.
Influential US critic David Ehrlich of the IndieWire website called it “a sort of ‘24 Hour Party People’ for the early 1980s Leningrad underground rock scene”.
“Exuberant, shapeless, gorgeous long-takes galore, a ‘psycho killer’ singalong, the end of an era. I dug it,” he tweeted of the movie, which features music by Lou Reed, David Bowie and Blondie.
The head of the French film board was equally ecstatic, calling it a “Russian ‘Trainspotting’. This is f…… roll ‘n’ roll,” said Christophe Tardieu.
Festival director Thierry Fremaux had earlier held up a white placard with the director’s name as the cast climbed the steps of the red carpet to the cinema.
A seat was left symbolically empty inside for Serebrennikov, who has been under house arrest on embezzlement charges since last August.
He has dismissed the charges as “absurd” and his supporters see them as political.
Serebrennikov’s detention has sent shock waves through the Russian arts world.
The 48-year-old has revolutionized Moscow’s theater scene with radical stagings of new plays and by reinventing the classics.
Although he has never openly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, Serebrennikov has attacked the growing pressure being put on artists in Russia.
He has also won prizes at the Cannes and Rome film festivals, while his 2012 film “Betrayal” was nominated for the prestigious Golden Lion at Venice.
“Leto”, which means summer, is in the running for Cannes’ top prize, the Palme d’Or.
It tells the story of Tsoi, whose songs are seen in Russia as anthems of the late 1980s Perestroika era.
Both the festival and the French government pleaded with Moscow to allow Serebrennikov to travel to Cannes for the screening.
Fremaux told reporters before the premiere that Putin had told the festival that “Serebrennikov has problems with the judiciary of our country. I would have loved to help but the courts are independent”.
Russian conservatives were outraged when Serebrennikov was allowed to direct a ballet about legendary gay ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev at the Bolshoi.
Nikita Mikhalkov, a powerful Oscar-winning film director with close Kremlin links, said Serebrennikov should not have been allowed “to hang Nureyev’s cock” in the country’s most important theater.
This was a reference to the production’s use of a famous full-frontal nude photograph of the dancer by Richard Avedon.
Serebrennikov is one of two directors competing for the Palme d’Or who has been banned from travelling to the festival.
Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi is also barred from leaving his homeland for supporting pro-democracy activists after the “stolen election” of 2009.