KIRILL SEREBRENNIKOV
One of the most outstanding figures of contemporary Russian cinema, Kirill Serebrennikov was born in 1969 in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia. He spent most of his youth there and began working as a stage director at the Rostov-on-Don theatres in 1994. He participated in “69”, an amateur theatre company, and directed his first feature film, Undressed, in 1998.. This film was a great success and earned him the favour of the Russian critics. At the same time, he pursued a career as a theatre director and as artistic director of the famous Gogol Centre in Moscow.
In 2006, he directed the film Playing the Victim,which won him the Rome Film Festival Prize. In 2008 his Yuri’s Day premiered in Locarno’s international competition. Betrayal, the film he directed in 2012, had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. His next film, The Student, was selected for Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2016. An opponent of Putin, known for his liberal and LGBT-friendly stances, in 2017 he was unjustly accused of embezzling public funds for a theatre group he directed. Despite protests from the Russian and international artistic community, he was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in 2022 and has since been living in exile in Berlin.
In 2018, Summer,a film that depicts the Leningrad underground rock scene of the early 1980s, competed at Cannes. The film was also screened at the Trieste Film Festival in 2019. Limonov: The Ballad, based on the novel Limonov by Emmanuel Carrère, was also in competition at Cannes in 2024.
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele is his most recent work: based on the novel of the same name by Olivier Guez, it is the first film that Serebrennikov has filmed outside Russia, and was presented at Cannes in 2025.
In 2018, Serebrennikov was appointed Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France for his significant contribution to the arts and literature.
selected filmography
1998 Razdetyye (Undressed) 2001 Rostov-papa serie TV / TV Series 2003 Dnevnik ubiytsy (The Murderer’s Diary) serie TV / TV Series 2004 Ragin 2006 Izobražaja žertvu (Playing the Victim); Premi / Awards: Roma Festa del Cinema – Miglior film / Best Film 2008 Yuri’s Day (Yuri’s Day) 2012 Izmena (Betrayal) 2016 Učenik (Parola di Dio / The Student) 2018 Leto (Summer) 2021 Petrovy v grippe (Petrov’s Flu) 2022 Žena Čajkovskogo (La moglie di Tchaikovsky / Tchaikovsky’s Wife) 2024 Limonov: The Ballad (Limonov) 2025 Das Verschwinden des Josef Mengele (La scomparsa di Josef Mengele / The Disappearance of Josef Mengele)
