The last two times the Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov had films playing at the Cannes Film Festival, he couldn't attend. He was under a travel ban in Russia as part of a conviction for fraud in what was widely protested as unwarranted repression of the arts in Russia. Last year, Serebrennikov, one of Russia's most celebrated directors of film and theater, appeared at a Cannes press conference by FaceTime.
But after fleeing Russia in March once the ban ended, Serebrennikov was in Cannes Wednesday to premiere his latest film, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife," which is competing for the Palme d'Or. It's a period film that challenges state propaganda, which has attempted to hide that the famous Russian composer was homosexual. In 2013, Russia enacted a law banning “gay propaganda.”
