Francois Chalet Award from the Cannes Film Festival Jury - at Kirill Serebrennikov

CANNES. "Apprentice" Serebrennikov received a prize at the 69th film festival.

The Francois Chalais Prize is not one of the main awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Other directors received them in the program “Special Look” this year: Finn Juho Kuosmanen for Hymyileva Mies, American Matt Ross for his second film Captain Fantastic, Dutchman Michael Dudok de Wit for The Red Turtle.

However, the fact of the award of a prize established in memory of the famous journalist and film historian Francois Chalet who died of leukemia and the Russian film “Pupil” is a reassuring event. It indicates the relevance of the topic chosen by Serebrennikov, affecting directly or indirectly any person. The language of Serebrennikov’s films is understandable, not archaic, and without effort is built into the context of modern cinema. Inconsistency with these criteria is one of the main reasons for the lack of Russian films at major film forums.

The relevance of the tape, based on the play by Marius von Mayenburg set in the Gogol Center, is beyond doubt, hence the unanimity of the jury. The desire of the newly emerged messiahs, who believed in their own exclusiveness, to tightly regulate the lives of those around them, leads to the imposition of medieval dogmas, impossible from the point of view of a modern person. Intolerance and religious fanaticism of a local nature, not meeting decent opposition, inevitably lead to global catastrophic consequences.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru