The Scoop
The producers of a film intensely critical of Vladimir Putin’s Russia say a legal effort that has blocked it from being shown in Venice this week is the culmination of a long Russian campaign against the movie.
The film, The Antique, tells the story of Georgians who were deported from Russia in 2006 amid a crisis between the countries, and was scheduled to be screened in Venice today in the Giornate degli Autori, a film competition hosted during the Venice International Film Festival.
“We are in the middle of Europe, and we are under censorship,” director Rusudan Glurjidze told Semafor in her first interview since the screening was suspended.
The screening was blocked after legal action taken by two other producers to stop it, and has been widely covered in the film press and Italian media this week. The other producers have cast the argument as an ordinary legal dispute over rights, now playing out in Italian court. The Venice International Film Festival, which controls screening venues, “is believed to have asked for the screenings to be suspended while the matter is resolved,” Deadline reported.
But Rusudan and producer Zurab Magalashvili say the legal threats come after an extended campaign against the film.
“When I started to write this movie, I immediately understood that it will be a tough journey with this film,” Rusudan said.
The Antique tells the story of a Georgian couple in St. Petersburg, Lado and Medea, who are involved in the smuggling of antique furniture and are caught up in the brutal 2006 deportations. Putin is present through his public statements on the crisis between Russia and Georgia, and through the character Vadim Vadimovich, an older Russian who lives in Medea’s apartment and is intended to embody an older, failing version of the Russian leader, softer but still “evil,” Rusudan said.
The producers say they sought and received permission from Russian culture minister Olga Lyubimova to shoot in Moscow. They said they believe she initially approved the film without reading the screenplay.
After officials did read the script, they asked that 16 scenes reflecting badly on the Russian authorities be cut, the producers said. And when the crew arrived in St. Petersburg to begin filming on Jan. 11, 2022, officials threw up obstacles, refusing to allow them to film in locations they’d planned.
One morning, they arrived on set to find that costumes had been destroyed, Magalashvili said.
Filming concluded on Feb. 22, 2022, the day before Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine amid tightening restrictions on speech in Russia. Concerned that their footage would be confiscated, the filmmakers handed off hard drives to members of Russia’s remaining Georgian community, who drove south to Vladikavkaz and across the border into Georgia.
When the filmmakers arrived at the airport to leave the country, Russian customs officials confiscated the filmmakers’ digital storage, Magalashvili said.
“They were sure they confiscated the footage of the film,” he said.
The Antique may have been the last foreign film shot in Russia.
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The canceled screening has provoked a flurry of coverage in Italy, where the move was cast in geopolitical terms. ”At least here, Russia wins,” wrote Corriere della Sera. For now, producers said, the film will screen for a jury but not in public for an audience.
One of the producers seeking to block the production, Sergej Stanojkovski, told Semafor in an email that “any suggestion of my involvement on behalf of the Russian state, or any other state, to influence the screening of the film in Venice is entirely untrue and unfounded.” He said his interest “lies in the swift resolution of this matter so that the film can be released and reach its deserved audience, allowing all investors to begin recouping their investments.”
Ben’s view
The details of this dispute will be resolved, for now, in an Italian court. But they come after a decade in which it has grown harder and harder to release movies that might anger authoritarian states. The devastating North Korean hack of Sony in 2014 put producers and distributors on notice that criticizing countries with advanced cyberwarfare capacities could be risky. The Hollywood dream of riches in the Chinese market have shaped everything from subject matter to dialogue in major films for years.
The film, a small, human story cast amid a largely forgotten moment in Russia’s authoritarian turn, isn’t exactly an obvious threat to Putin’s rule. But it comes amid growing alarm in Europe at Russian interference in ways large and small. And
“The power of this story is that great art still matters,” said Greg Jordan, the American screenwriter of Rusudan’s next film, Toufar, which is about a Czech priest killed after defying his country’s Communist regime. “It’s both hilarious and heartening that a beautiful film can threaten so much in 2024.”
Notable
- Festival organizers are working to get the film released.
- The Venice International Film Festival is one of a number of Italian cultural institutions with new leaders installed by a right-wing government that is, among other things, relatively sympathetic to Russia.