Kirill Serebrennikov

Kirill’s grandfather Alexander Ivanovich Litvin was a film director and screenwriter, he worked at Moldova-Film in (1953–1972) and was titled an Honored Culture Worker of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.

As recalled by his mother, Serebrennikov was drawn to theater as early as in kindergarten age.

He studied at the math school, in the 8th grade he established his own student theater and staged a play called ‘Shadow’.

Kirill Semyonovich Serebrennikov (Кирилл Семёнович Серебренников; Кирило Семенович Серебренніков; born 7 September 1969) is a Russian stage and film director and theatre designer.

Serebrennikov made his first steps as a professional director as early as in 1990.

Having graduated from Rostov State University with majors in physics in 1992.

Following the will of his parents, he entered the Physics department at the Rostov State University and graduated with honours in 1992, but soon after graduation he started working on TV.

Serebrennikov had no formal theatre education prior to his stage director debut in 1994.

In 1998 he emerged as a film director.

In 2001, he staged his first production in Moscow.

Serebrennikov has staged ‘Plastilin’ at the Centre of Drama and Directing.

Later he worked Moscow Chekhov Theatre, Latvian National Theatre, Theatre of Nations.

He has been active in opera staging productions for the Mariinsky Theatre, and the Bolshoi Theatre in Russia, where he has also been a stage director and a designer for a ballet, Komische Oper Berlin and Stuttgart Opera in Germany.

For several years Serebrennikov’s career flourished under the patronage of "grey cardinal" Vladislav Surkov, the Putin aide who developed the notion of Russia’s "sovereign democracy": he even directed a stage version of a novel that Surkov wrote under a pseudonym.

In 2006 Serebrennikov became an art director of the ‘Territory’ International Festival.

In 2006-2007 Serebrennikov hosted ‘Drugoe Kino’ (‘Other Cinema’) TV show at the TV3 channel.

In 2007 he hosted a talk-show ‘Details (Talk Show)’ at the STS (TV channel).

Since 2008, he is a professor of the Moscow Art Theatre School, where he has a class of actors and directors.

His productions have been presented at the Wiener Festwochen, and the Avignon Theatre Festival.

His films have been screened at Cannes Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Rome Film Festival, and the Warsaw International Film Festival where his film Yuri's Day (2008) received the Grand Prix.

In 2009 Serebrennikov launched the Platforma art incubator, a platform that supported theatre projects around Russia.

In 2011 Serebrennikov staged Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘The Golden Cockerel’ for the Bolshoi.

The play received wide acclaims and was perceived by many as a ‘biting satire’ on Kremlin.

Since 2012, he has been the artistic director of the Gogol Center in Moscow.

He is one of Russia's leading theatre and cinema directors and winner of numerous international awards.

In 2012, he was appointed artistic director of The Gogol Center.

Under Serebrennikov it evolved into the world-renowned center of liberal art.

However, many peers criticized the new director for his edginess and running against the conservative course led by Russian authorities.

Zhenya Berkovich, one of Serebrennikov's students, staged one of the first plays at the Gogol Centre.

For TV, Serebrennikov directed more than 100 commercials, two documentaries, 11 music videos and three TV series.

By 2015, more than 340 projects were staged and released.

His film The Student (2016) was awarded a prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2017 he was arrested for alleged embezzlement of the state funds given to the Seventh Studio, a cultural institution he headed.

Serebrennikov spent almost 2 years under house arrest.

A key witness confessed that she made accusations under pressure from the investigators, and the judge was changed.

Media, international cultural community and human rights activists unanimously considered the case politically motivated and fabricated because Serebrennikov was known for his liberal and LGBT-friendly stances that opposes Russian official conservative positions.

In June 2020, Serebrennikov was sentenced guilty and given three years of probation.

In March 2022 the sentence was cancelled.

Serebrennikov was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russian SFSR to a Jewish father and a Ukrainian mother.

His father, Semyon Mikhailovich Serebrennikov was a surgeon, while his mother, Iryna Oleksandrivna Lytvyn was a teacher of Russian language and literature.