After three controversial biopics, Russian author Kirill Serebrennikov will next tackle a more tender, original drama about photography set in France.
Described as a “chamber film” and “almost a love story” shot on a more intimate scale, the project will be Serebrennikov’s first feature film in French.
Following 2022’s “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” with “Limonov: The Ballad” and Josef Mengele’s upcoming drama “The Disappearance” — which the director has already packaged — Serebrennikov has begun developing this French-language project to give himself a shoutout. Change the pace.
“It will be less dark,” he says. diverse from the Marrakesh Film Festival, adding that he will be taking a break from real-world characters for a while. “Let’s say this original text is about my admiration for photography, about the genius of photography as an art (and about) the love of two photographers.”
The director will shoot this film on a smaller scale while he continues to develop his English-language limited series adaptation of “The Phantom of the Opera” with partners at Pathé and Hype Studios.
While the director and playwright has always divided his attention between cinema and theatre, Serebrennikov is equally keen to experiment with new media, adding that he “dreams” of creating a virtual reality or augmented reality project, and that he “would love it.” a lot.”
He says: “It is pure cinema, cinema without cuts.” “That’s why I strive to show the audience that there are no tricks. Life is real, and we just present reality as it is, without hidden devices, without pretending, or showing only one side of it. (I would really like to show) a 360-degree observation of this reality.”
The Russian director, now based in Berlin, has become a fixture at Cannes, sending his past five films to the Croisette although legal problems have prevented him from attending a number of those screenings in person. But the director was on hand last May to present “Limonov: The Ballad” alongside lead actor Ben Whishaw, and could return next year to release Mengele on the Lam drama “The Disappearance.”
“This character is worse,” says the director. “Once again I am choosing to portray a very bad man, but I think this is important because if we do not understand what evil is and what it means to us today, we will never be able to rid ourselves of it.”
“If we call Limonov the ‘Russian Joker,’ then Mengele is an almost gothic figure who embodies all the dark sides of humanity,” Serebrennikov adds. “It is completely inhuman, but at the same time it speaks for itself, as everything expressed in the film is now suddenly and frighteningly part of our daily lives.”