Russian director targeted in Putin raids

Russian investigators have seized the passport of award-winning film and theatre director Kirill Serebrennikov.

Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian investigators have seized the passport of an award-winning filmmaker and theatre director over fraud allegations that critics say are part of President Vladimir Putin’s arts crackdown.

Kirill Serebrennikov, 47, told German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung that his passport was taken by the authorities over suspicions that he had conspired to embezzle £2.5 million in state funding between 2010 and 2014.

Serebrennikov, who is often critical of the Kremlin, was detained during a dawn raid by masked police on his apartment in Moscow in May. He was questioned for six hours before he was released. Several people from his Seventh Studio theatre group, which is funded by the culture ministry, have been arrested over the fraud claims.

Security forces also raided Moscow’s Gogol Centre, where Serebrennikov is artistic director. He says he is shocked by the allegations, which he denies.

Serebrennikov, who won a Cannes award last year for The Student, a film about religious extremism in Russia, has not been formally charged. The pressure against him increased when a former accountant testified in court that he had ordered her to falsify the theatre group’s accounts.

An outspoken advocate for LGBT rights, Serebrennikov criticised Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014. He has called Putin a thug and says his supporters are “frightened people”. Last month, the Bolshoi Theatre unexpectedly postponed a premiere of his ballet about the life of Rudolf Nureyev, the Soviet dancer. Vladimir Urin, the Bolshoi’s general director, said that it was “not ready”. Sources close to the Bolshoi say it was pulled because of its frank depiction of Nureyev’s homosexuality.

The fraud case against Seventh Studio at times has reached levels of absurdity remarkable even for Russian courts. In June, a prosecutor argued that Serebrennikov’s state-funded production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream might not have been staged and that reviews of the critically acclaimed show — also performed in Paris — could have been faked.

Dozens of cultural figures have signed an open letter defending Serebrennikov. Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov says putting pressure on the director is a clear message from the Kremlin that “people need to stay silent and not criticise the authorities”.

The Times