The Theater Case
Kirill Serebrennikov, 48, began his career in the 1980s in the student theater of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Today he has directed more than one hundred performances worldwide.
Laureate of the TEFI National Television Award; Triumph Award; Stanislavsky Award; Chaika Theater Award; Crystal Turandot Award; Francois Chalais Prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard program); Grand Prix winner of the First Roman International Film Festival; several prizes from the LXI International Film Festival in Locarno; prize for direction at the Russian Kinotavr Film Festival; the Europe Prize New Theatrical Realities in 2017.
Since 2006 Serebrennikov has been one of the art directors of the international “Territory” Festival-School.
In 2011 he became artistic director of the Platforma project created by mandate of the President and Cabinet of the Russian Ministry of Culture to advance the ideas of contemporary culture in Russian society.
In 2012 Sergei Kapkov, then head of the Moscow Department of Culture, invited Serebrennikov to head up and reorganize the Moscow Gogol Dramatic Theater. He turned one of the city’s less popular public theaters into a successful center of contemporary culture that brings together theater, contemporary dance, music, cinema and educational projects.
In 2012, Serebrennikov developed a course for actors and directors at the Moscow Art Theater Studio School. The “Seventh Studio” theatrical group was created as the basis of the course. Studio actors played roles in “Hero of Our Time,” based on a work by Mikhail Lermontov; Zakhar Prilepin’s “Scumbags”; “The Hunting of the Snark” by Lewis Carroll; Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” (together with David Bobee); “Red Branch,” based on Russian poetry; and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The course became part of the troupe of the Gogol Center along with the best performers of the older generation of the Gogol Theater. Course graduates went on to act in many Russian films.
Kirill Serebrennikov began his career in the 1980s in the student theater of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Today he has directed more than one hundred performances included at the Sovremennik Theater (Moscow); Chekhov Moscow Art Theater (Moscow); Oleg Tabakov Theater (Moscow); National Drama Theater (Riga, Latvia); Bolshoi Theater (Moscow); Komische Oper (Berlin); Mariinsky Theater (St. Petersburg); National Opera Theater (Stuttgart); Helikon Opera Musical Theater (Moscow); and, of course, Gogol Center, which Serebrennikov has headed since 2012.
Under Serebrennikov the Gogol Center has produced many acclaimed productions, including “The Idiots” (based on the 1998 film by Lars von Trier), which was showcased at the Avignon theater festival; “Dead Souls” by Nikolai Gogol, which was part of the prominent festivals in Vienna, Avignon and Belgrade.
Today Serebrennikov is the best-known and most sought-after Russian theater director in the world.
The main idea behind all of Serebrennikov’s works is “the theater, which cannot be cut off from society and not connected to today’s world”. The director has strongly held views on life and society and is consistently opposed to any manifestations of totalitarianism and intolerance. But he often says that the main space for his expression is art and he avoids political activity.
Since August 23, 2017 Serebrennikov has been under house arrest in connection with accusations in the so-called “Theater Case,” also known as the “Seventh Studio Case.”
The “Theater Case” began after operatives in masks were sent early in the morning of May 23, 2017 by the Russian Investigative Committee to break into the apartments of several former and current employees of the “Seventh Studio.” Searches were conducted in the apartment of Kirill Serebrennikov, founder of the Studio and artistic director of Gogol Center and the other apartments, as well as in the Gogol Center theater, where actors and administrative staff were held for several hours in the hall without explanation.
Serebrennikov was questioned as a witness and released after signing a document guaranteeing that he would appear before the investigators on demand. The investigation accused the heads of the “Seventh Studio” of embezzling at least 68 million rubles (about 1 million dollars) of funds provided by the state for the development and popularization of art from 2011 to 2014.
The three main figures in the “Theater Case” are Alexei Malobrodsky, former general producer of the studio; Yuri Itin, former general director; and Nina Maslyayeva, former chief bookkeeper.
In the investigators’ first version, performances that received funding were not performed. In particular, the investigators stated that the production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was never performed. The defense provided proof that the production had been staged, including reviews, videos of the premiere and other performances, and testimony from people who saw it. But these were not admitted by the court as evidence.
In the first phase of the investigation, Nina Maslyayeva, former chief bookkeeper for Seventh Studio was arrested in May and sent to pre-trial detention. The former general director Yuri Itin was put under house arrest. A month later in June 2017 Alexei Malobrodsky, the former general producer of the Studio, was arrested and sent to pre-trial detention.
On the night of August 22, 2017, Serebrennikov was on the set of his new film, “Summer,” in St. Petersburg. He was arrested on the set and taken from St. Petersburg to Moscow in a car with tinted windows. On August 23 the Basmanny Court in Moscow sentenced him to house arrest for the duration of the pre-trial investigation.
In court Serebrennikov stated that they had no travel documents that would permit him to leave Russia (his passport was confiscated during the first search), and no intention to do so. Leading Russian and foreign actors, directors and cultural figures spoke out in his defense, but his house arrest was extended twice and appeals were denied.
Under pressure from the investigators, Nina Maslyayeva, former chief bookkeeper of “Seventh Studio” made a deal with the investigation and admitted her guilt. After that Maslyayeva was released from pre-trial detention and put under house arrest. Her case is now separate from the others.
In October 2017, Sofia Apfelbaum, a former employee of the Ministry of Culture, was detained and then put under house arrest as part of the “Theater Case.” She was one of many ministry employees in charge of the Platforma project from 2011 to 2014. Apfelbaum quit her position at the Ministry of Culture at the insistence of culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, who did not hide his ideological disagreement with her views on contemporary art.
Serebrennikov continued to work throughout 2017 despite being under investigation and then house arrest. He produced “Close City” by Marius Ivaškevičius at the National Drama Theater of Latvia; the opera “Chaadsky” by Alexander Manotskov at the Helikon Opera in Moscow; and the ballet “Nureyev” at the Bolshoi Theater. In Africa he completed complex filming of “Hansel and Gretel” for the Stuttgart Opera; did filming for the feature film “Summer” (the production has been temporarily halted); and put on Alexander Pushkin’s “Little Tragedies” at Gogol Center.
Many Russian ratings have made Serebrennikov “man of the year” in the arts. At the Stuttgart Opera performance of “Hansel and Gretel,” the performers took their bows in t-shirts that were in support of Serebrennikov, as did the production team of “Nureyev” at the Bolshoi Theater and actors at Gogol Center. Many directors and actors at theaters in Russia and abroad have been outspoken in their support for Serebrennikov. Isabelle Huppert spoke words of sympathy and support in December 2017 at the Europe Theater Prize in Rome. She was to present Serebrennikov with his award, but the ceremony has been put off until it can be given to Serebrennikov in person.
A petition initiated by Thomas Ostermeier https://www.change.org/p/free-kirill-serebrennikov-freekirill demanding the release of Kirill Serebrennikov was signed by about 50,000 people all over the world. A letter of support for Serebrennikov was signed by prominent Russian and foreign cultural figures including Alexander Sokurov, Natalia Solzhenitsyn, Marius von Mayenburg, Cate Blanchett, Teodor Currentzis, Vladimir Yurovsky, and Thomas Ostermeier among many others.
On January 16 the Basmanny Court in Moscow extended the arrest of Kirill Serebrennikov, Yuri Itin and Alexei Malobrodsky.
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