Pussy Riot documentary

[Sarah Hurst]

Here's my translation of a reply from the artistic director of the Gogol
Theatre:

Kirill Serebrennikov
5 hours ago near Moscow, Russia
Even recently in all my interviews I asserted like a mantra: “There’s no
censorship in the theatre, there’s no censorship in the theatre, in the
theatre there’s no...” That’s it, we’re fucked, there’s censorship in the
theatre! Cynical, pointless and idiotic.
Now any freedom, any desire to find sense, any desire to express oneself –
it’s all stuck in the impenetrable gloom and hassle which has arrived,
filled all the space around us and controls us. We thought that somewhere –
in the theatre, in the “trendy” cafes, at home, or at the computer – there
was still a little free air. It’s like climbing on top of a wardrobe in a
flood and looking for salvation under the ceiling, where there’s still some
air. That’s it! We’re fucked! There’s no air! The “overwhelming majority”
got the air. It – this majority – orders a government for itself, and the
government orders the music to amuse and delight this majority.
They’ve banned us from holding the premiere of the film “Pussy Riot: A Punk
Prayer” and a meeting with Nadia Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina. Maxim
Pozdorovkin had flown in specially from New York. All the work of Irina
Prokhorova, who was supposed to host the conversation, has been cancelled.
After a whole day of tense negotiations a banning document arrived from the
department of culture at my request, which signifies one thing: censorship
in action. That’s it, it’s over! Who could be so afraid of a peaceful
conversation between a few hundred audience members at the Gogol Centre and
some young women who have been amnestied? Who could be so afraid of the
premiere of a film that has received a pile of prizes and that can’t tell
us anything new either about the government or about ourselves, as it was
made rather a long time ago? I don’t get it...
The premiere and the conversation won’t happen.
At the Moscow Art Theatre they’d only just finished the prosecutor’s checks
on my play The Pillowman, when a whole series of letters and appeals
appeared from “outraged and offended” citizens about Kostya Bogomolov’s
play. They demand Tabakov’s resignation. They demand “a lawsuit”, “a ban”,
“a closure”... And it’s clear that this isn’t just an increase in seasonal
schizophrenia – this is very real religious censorship. We’re fucked!
Welcome! We’ve made it! Now the fanatics will tell us how to put on plays,
what we can do and say on stage, and what we can’t. Everyone knows what’s
happening at the Moscow Art Theatre, everyone reads the news. And where are
all our professional societies? Why are you silent? Did you piss
yourselves? Well done! Next time they’ll come for you.
And finally – an ethical Charter for the “fuckoff” of cinematographers –
who have concluded an accord by this fucking symphony. Censorship that
they’re trying to bring in not by the hands of bureaucrats, not by the
clergy, but now by the hands of our colleagues themselves – the most adroit
and nimble students of “the Dragon”. This is what’s the most disgusting and
odious. Yes, a weak person, but it’s possible even for this weak person
just to go around it, it’s possible to try “not to be, not to participate,
not to do it”, but it’s possible to happily kick down a comrade, help him
to fall, make sure he doesn’t get up, and at the same time be happy at the
“elimination of a rival”. You’re living right, friends! It’ll all work out
for you.
To sum up, it’s a shame that we’ve had to cancel the event. For me it’s
unbelievably repulsive and foul. I never thought that, to speak in the
words of the classics, “I’d fall into such fucking crap”. I call on all
people for whom the concepts of honesty and freedom are alive, for whom the
worth and right of an artist to create speak freely are important, to rally
round and oppose the coming Gloom. In word, in action, in art, whatever you
can do.
And I hope that when this shameful bullshit ends, we, remembering all this,
will laugh at ourselves, and will write the truth about this petty little
period. If “the overwhelming majority” doesn’t cancel us, the truth and
everything else before then. But experienced people tell me that because of
our cowardice and laziness this “bullshit” will never end.

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