After perusing our massive, 60-film, two-part fall preview, there shouldn’t be too many surprises on our first monthly highlights of the season. While September is often thought of as prelude to awards-season favorites, there are also a number of stellar, smaller-scale offerings we hope don’t get lost in the cracks––including a rather strong honorable mentions list to follow. Check out our picks below.
12. Petrov’s Flu (Kirill Serebrennikov; Sept. 23)
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov has been invited to back-to-back Cannes, premiering Petrov’s Flu last year and Tchaikovsky’s Wife this year. The former is finally getting a U.S. release, and Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Petrov’s Flu opens on a stuffy commute—a Moscow bus in the early years of post-Soviet Russia. The eponymous protagonist is already bent over a handrail, stricken with his affliction. The mood is fevered, almost circus-like, the lighting like pea soup. In a moment of madness,...
12. Petrov’s Flu (Kirill Serebrennikov; Sept. 23)
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov has been invited to back-to-back Cannes, premiering Petrov’s Flu last year and Tchaikovsky’s Wife this year. The former is finally getting a U.S. release, and Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Petrov’s Flu opens on a stuffy commute—a Moscow bus in the early years of post-Soviet Russia. The eponymous protagonist is already bent over a handrail, stricken with his affliction. The mood is fevered, almost circus-like, the lighting like pea soup. In a moment of madness,...
- 9/2/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov has been invited to back-to-back Cannes for his latest work, premiering Petrov’s Flu last year and Tchaikovsky’s Wife this year. The former is now finally getting a U.S. release this September, courtesy of Strand Releasing, and a new trailer has now arrived.
A deadpan, hallucinatory romp through post-Soviet Russia, see the film’s synopsis: “With the city in the throes of a flu epidemic, the Petrov family struggles through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fueled, icy fever dream of violence and tenderness, and where, beneath the layers of the ordinary, things turn out to be quite extraordinary. Part science fiction, mystery and dark comedy, this Cannes Film Festival entry is a unique hybrid of genres.”
Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Petrov’s Flu opens on a stuffy commute—a Moscow bus in the early years of post-Soviet Russia.
A deadpan, hallucinatory romp through post-Soviet Russia, see the film’s synopsis: “With the city in the throes of a flu epidemic, the Petrov family struggles through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fueled, icy fever dream of violence and tenderness, and where, beneath the layers of the ordinary, things turn out to be quite extraordinary. Part science fiction, mystery and dark comedy, this Cannes Film Festival entry is a unique hybrid of genres.”
Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Petrov’s Flu opens on a stuffy commute—a Moscow bus in the early years of post-Soviet Russia.
- 8/7/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
"Is it okay that we kidnapped a corpse?" Strand Releasing has unveiled an official US trailer for the Russian dark drama Petrov's Flu, described as a "deadpan, hallucinatory romp through post-Soviet Russia." This originally premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival last year, and has been on hold for release due to the war in Ukraine. But Cannes brought back Serebrennikov this year to show his next new film (Tchaikovsky's Wife) so that sort of cleared his name (despite his connection to oligarchs) and now they're going to release Petrov's Flu finally starting in the end of September at a few select art house cinemas. The film follows a day in the life of a comic book artist and his family in post-Soviet Russia. While suffering from the flu, Petrov is carried by his friend Igor on a long walk, drifting in and out of fantasy and reality. Very trippy. This stars Semyon Serzin,...
- 8/5/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Now in its 11th edition, the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival brings together a varied, eclectic lineup of cinema from all corners of the world––including a number of films still seeking distribution, making the series perhaps one of your only chances to see these works on the big screen.
With the five-day festival kicking off Wednesday, March 16, we’ve gathered seven essential films to check out. Beginning this Friday, March 11, MoMI will also present Second Look, which looks back at selections from the past decade of the festival.
Babi Yar. Context (Sergei Loznitsa)
One of two new archival documentaries from Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa screening at First Look, Babi Yar. Context revisits the horrific September 1941 massacre of 33,771 Jews that took place outside Kyiv. Casting an unflinching eye in its assembly of footage, the Cannes prizewinner examines factors leading up to the atrocity as Nazis took...
With the five-day festival kicking off Wednesday, March 16, we’ve gathered seven essential films to check out. Beginning this Friday, March 11, MoMI will also present Second Look, which looks back at selections from the past decade of the festival.
Babi Yar. Context (Sergei Loznitsa)
One of two new archival documentaries from Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa screening at First Look, Babi Yar. Context revisits the horrific September 1941 massacre of 33,771 Jews that took place outside Kyiv. Casting an unflinching eye in its assembly of footage, the Cannes prizewinner examines factors leading up to the atrocity as Nazis took...
- 3/10/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
A selection of Russian films will screen in-person during the Beijing International Film Festival (Bjiff) through a collaboration with the new Russian Film Festival, part of an effort by both governments to promote Russian cinema in China and cultural exchange.
The Chinese festival is set to run from Sept. 17 to Sept. 30 as an in-person event after being pushed back from its typical April release date due to the pandemic. Given its close ties to Chinese film authorities, it is often a platform to showcase works from countries with which China hopes to strengthen political ties.
The Russian Film Festival is a program targeting international audiences via a series of online screenings organized by state-run Roskino and backed by Russia’s ministry of culture, in response to the global shutdown of cinemas amid the pandemic. Last year, the festival was held online in Australia, Mexico, Spain and Brazil. This year, it has gone up in Argentina,...
The Chinese festival is set to run from Sept. 17 to Sept. 30 as an in-person event after being pushed back from its typical April release date due to the pandemic. Given its close ties to Chinese film authorities, it is often a platform to showcase works from countries with which China hopes to strengthen political ties.
The Russian Film Festival is a program targeting international audiences via a series of online screenings organized by state-run Roskino and backed by Russia’s ministry of culture, in response to the global shutdown of cinemas amid the pandemic. Last year, the festival was held online in Australia, Mexico, Spain and Brazil. This year, it has gone up in Argentina,...
- 9/15/2021
- by Rebecca Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Cannes title “Petrov’s Flu” has been picked up for the U.K. and Ireland by Sovereign Distribution.
The U.K.-based producer-distributor bought rights for Kirill Serebrennikov’s film from French sales agent Charades. The sci-fi drama, which was written and directed by the Russian helmer, enjoyed its world premiere at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d’Or, earlier this month.
Charades has closed deals for the title in France (Bad Films), Benelux (Imagine), Greece (Weird Wave), Italy (I Wonder Pictures), Portugal (Films4you), Poland (Gutek Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe), Baltics (Kino Soprus) and ex-Yugoslavia (Megacom), Israel (Lev Cinema/Shani Films), Turkey (Fabula Films), Mexico (Cine Canibal) and Indonesia (Falcon Pictures).
Adapted from the novel “The Petrovs In And Around Flu” by Russian author Alexey Sainikov, the film was described by Variety as a delirious, deadpan romp through post-Soviet Russia. The story...
The U.K.-based producer-distributor bought rights for Kirill Serebrennikov’s film from French sales agent Charades. The sci-fi drama, which was written and directed by the Russian helmer, enjoyed its world premiere at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d’Or, earlier this month.
Charades has closed deals for the title in France (Bad Films), Benelux (Imagine), Greece (Weird Wave), Italy (I Wonder Pictures), Portugal (Films4you), Poland (Gutek Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe), Baltics (Kino Soprus) and ex-Yugoslavia (Megacom), Israel (Lev Cinema/Shani Films), Turkey (Fabula Films), Mexico (Cine Canibal) and Indonesia (Falcon Pictures).
Adapted from the novel “The Petrovs In And Around Flu” by Russian author Alexey Sainikov, the film was described by Variety as a delirious, deadpan romp through post-Soviet Russia. The story...
- 7/21/2021
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Watching the tumultuous and punishing Russian extravaganza Petrov’s Flu is like suffering a physical assault in a dark alley, or having a load of garbage jammed down your throat and piled on top of you until you just can’t take it anymore. Experimental theater bad boy and 2018 Cannes competition Leto entrant Kirill Serebrennikov takes a throw-in-everything-including-the-kitchen sink approach to painting an appallingly bleak portrait of modern Russian life. It’s arresting for a while, but you get the feeling that nothing would ever be enough for the filmmaker, that he’d still be exposing the excesses and crimes and corruption if he could.
The director has been in trouble with Russian authorities from time to time, and this time he’s had the luck, if it can be called that, to make a film in which a fictional pandemic that appears on screen coincides with the real thing.
The director has been in trouble with Russian authorities from time to time, and this time he’s had the luck, if it can be called that, to make a film in which a fictional pandemic that appears on screen coincides with the real thing.
- 7/17/2021
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
Petrov’s Flu opens on a stuffy commute—a Moscow bus in the early years of post-Soviet Russia. The eponymous protagonist is already bent over a handrail, stricken with his affliction. The mood is fevered, almost circus-like, the lighting like pea soup. In a moment of madness, Petrov (played by Semyon Serzin) is dragged from the bus by militiamen in Mexican wrestling masks. Hard rock plays. He takes a gun and joins their firing squad, mowing down some nameless humans. The mind briefly wanders to Brazil, and somehow Songs from the Second Floor.
The director here is Kirill Serebrennikov, a filmmaker whose imagination must forever do battle with the drama of his own life. Raised in Rostov in the 1970s, Serebrennikov became a key figure in the state-sponsored progressive cultural shifts of Vladimir Putin’s early years in office—seen at the time as a counterweight to the leader’s moves towards a new authoritarianism.
The director here is Kirill Serebrennikov, a filmmaker whose imagination must forever do battle with the drama of his own life. Raised in Rostov in the 1970s, Serebrennikov became a key figure in the state-sponsored progressive cultural shifts of Vladimir Putin’s early years in office—seen at the time as a counterweight to the leader’s moves towards a new authoritarianism.
- 7/14/2021
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Kirill Serebrennikov really, really needs you to know that he’s got talent. After spending nearly 20 months under house arrest (and doesn’t that sound familiar), the provocative Russian director stepped back behind the camera for “Petrov’s Flu,” an alternately exhilarating and exhausting film that premiered in competition on Monday at the Cannes Film Festival.
While early predictors pegged the title – which follows a family and city reeling from a mysterious new respiratory illness and comes from a director who has become something of an international icon for artistic freedom in the face of government repression – as a leading Palme d’Or contender, those calculations might change a step or two now that the film has screened.
Make no mistake, “Petrov’s Flu” is a formidable piece of filmmaking; it is also an exercise in style that uses its own virtuoso technique as a blunt-force tool against the audience. An abrasive...
While early predictors pegged the title – which follows a family and city reeling from a mysterious new respiratory illness and comes from a director who has become something of an international icon for artistic freedom in the face of government repression – as a leading Palme d’Or contender, those calculations might change a step or two now that the film has screened.
Make no mistake, “Petrov’s Flu” is a formidable piece of filmmaking; it is also an exercise in style that uses its own virtuoso technique as a blunt-force tool against the audience. An abrasive...
- 7/12/2021
- by Ben Croll
- The Wrap
It’s been two years since iconoclastic Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov was released from a 20-month period of house arrest on embezzlement charges widely considered to have been trumped up by the government. If things haven’t been plain sailing since then — the revived case ended in a suspended sentence last year, confining the director to his home country — he has at least been free to roam, work and film in Russia. Cue “Petrov’s Flu,” Serebrennikov’s first feature since his release, and a consummate answer to the admittedly niche question of just what kind of film one makes after such a period of confinement: one that moves as freely and recklessly as possible, untethered by short-leash rules of time, space or storytelling.
Tearing at a mile a minute through an extravagantly surreal vision of Yekaterinburg in the maddening grip of a flu epidemic, “Petrov’s Flu” is a rowdy, exhilarating...
Tearing at a mile a minute through an extravagantly surreal vision of Yekaterinburg in the maddening grip of a flu epidemic, “Petrov’s Flu” is a rowdy, exhilarating...
- 7/12/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Set to return to Cannes competition after his impressive rock ‘n roll drama Leto, director Kirill Serebrennikov’s latest work is Petrov’s Flu. Although conceived before the pandemic, the adaptation of Alexey Salnikov’s 2018 novel “The Petrovs In and Around the Flu” certainly has new resonance as it captures life in a post-Soviet Russia, specifically in a city in the throes of a flu epidemic. Ahead of a Cannes premiere, a new trailer has now arrived.
Described as a deadpan, hallucinatory romp, the film follows the Petrov family as they struggle through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fueled, icy fever dream of violence and tenderness.
The film was written while the director was on house arrest in Moscow. “I was under house arrest for almost two years,” he told THR. “But the last year I was quite free.
Described as a deadpan, hallucinatory romp, the film follows the Petrov family as they struggle through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fueled, icy fever dream of violence and tenderness.
The film was written while the director was on house arrest in Moscow. “I was under house arrest for almost two years,” he told THR. “But the last year I was quite free.
- 6/7/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
"Is it okay that we kidnapped a corpse and kind of mocked it?" A festival promo trailer has debuted for the new Russian film titled Petrov's Flu, the latest from acclaimed Russian filmmaker / theater director Kirill Serebrennikov. It's premiering at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival next month in the Competition section. His last feature, a rock band film called Leto (which is a Great film), also premiered at Cannes in 2018 while Serebrennikov was under house-arrest in Russia (for political reasons). Based on the novel titled "The Petrovs In and Around the Flu" by Alexey Sainikov, Petrov’s Flu is described as a “deadpan, hallucinatory romp through Post-Soviet Russia”. A day in the life of a comic book artist and his family in post-Soviet Russia, as he is taken on a long walk by his friend while he has the flu. Starring Semyon Serzin, Chulpan Khamatova, with Yuriy Borisov, Yuliya Peresild, Yuri Kolokolnikov,...
- 6/7/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
The film is described as ’a deadpan romp through post-Soviet Russia”.
Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s new film Petrov’s Flu ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in July.
Based on the novel The Petrovs In And Around Flu by Alexey Sainikov, Petrov’s Flu is described as a “deadpan, hallucinatory romp through Post-Soviet Russia”.
“With the city in the throes of a flu epidemic, the Petrov family struggles through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fuelled, icy...
Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s new film Petrov’s Flu ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in July.
Based on the novel The Petrovs In And Around Flu by Alexey Sainikov, Petrov’s Flu is described as a “deadpan, hallucinatory romp through Post-Soviet Russia”.
“With the city in the throes of a flu epidemic, the Petrov family struggles through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fuelled, icy...
- 6/7/2021
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Company releases first image for The Macaluso Sisters and Kirill Serebrennikov’s Petrov’s Flu.
Paris-based company Charades has boarded world sales on Sicilian director Emma Dante’s Palermo-set feature The Macaluso Sisters, about a group of tightly-knit sisters whose lives are marked forever by the death of one of them in a tragic beach accident.
The feature is an adaptation of Dante’s 2014 play of the same name which has toured her native Italy as well as Europe and the Us to critical acclaim in recent years. It is a second fiction feature for Dante after debut film A...
Paris-based company Charades has boarded world sales on Sicilian director Emma Dante’s Palermo-set feature The Macaluso Sisters, about a group of tightly-knit sisters whose lives are marked forever by the death of one of them in a tragic beach accident.
The feature is an adaptation of Dante’s 2014 play of the same name which has toured her native Italy as well as Europe and the Us to critical acclaim in recent years. It is a second fiction feature for Dante after debut film A...
- 2/18/2020
- by 1100388¦Melanie Goodfellow¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
Petrov’s Flu
For his eighth feature, Russia’s Kirill Serebrennikov, still unable to leave Moscow despite being released from house of arrest in April of 2019, has commenced work on eighth feature Petrov’s Flu, based Alexey Salnikov’s (a contemporary writer compared to Bulgakov or Gogol) novel The Petrovs in Various Stages of the Flu (the screenplay which he wrote while under house arrest). The Russian-Swiss-German-French co-production will star Chulpan Khamatova and Semyon Serzin.…...
For his eighth feature, Russia’s Kirill Serebrennikov, still unable to leave Moscow despite being released from house of arrest in April of 2019, has commenced work on eighth feature Petrov’s Flu, based Alexey Salnikov’s (a contemporary writer compared to Bulgakov or Gogol) novel The Petrovs in Various Stages of the Flu (the screenplay which he wrote while under house arrest). The Russian-Swiss-German-French co-production will star Chulpan Khamatova and Semyon Serzin.…...
- 1/2/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
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