Set to return to Cannes competition after his impressive rock ‘n roll drama Leto, director Kirill Serebrennikov’s latest work is Petrov’s Flu. Although conceived before the pandemic, the adaptation of Alexey Salnikov’s 2018 novel “The Petrovs In and Around the Flu” certainly has new resonance as it captures life in a post-Soviet Russia, specifically in a city in the throes of a flu epidemic. Ahead of a Cannes premiere, a new trailer has now arrived.
Described as a deadpan, hallucinatory romp, the film follows the Petrov family as they struggle through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fueled, icy fever dream of violence and tenderness.
The film was written while the director was on house arrest in Moscow. “I was under house arrest for almost two years,” he told THR. “But the last year I was quite free. There were two trials: The first ended with the chairman of the court closing the case, saying there was no evidence, that it’s rubbish. Then suddenly they started it again and made a second trial. The second trial was much wilder and weirder and it was clear that they wanted everything to lead to a guilty verdict.” He evaded prison time after this latest embezzlement trial, rather given a three-year suspended sentence.
Featuring the cast of Semyon Serzin, Chulpan Khamatova, Yulia Peresild, Yura Borisov, and Yuri Kolokolnikov, watch below.
Petrov’s Flu will premiere at Cannes.