Director Serebrennikov: "We carry our freedom within us"
Created: 01/14/2022, 18:06
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov.
© Marcus Brandt/dpa/archive image
For the Russian star director Kirill Serebrennikov (52), the best answer to his house arrest was work.
"The best option is to fight for life," Serebrennikov said on Friday at Hamburg's Thalia Theater.
That's why he had to work and used every second to write and read.
"I was thinking about how to live instead of thinking about how to die," says the director.
Hamburg – Serebrennikow was arrested in the summer of 2017 and placed under house arrest.
The penal camp demanded by the public prosecutor's office for alleged misappropriation of funds was converted into a three-year suspended sentence with a ban on leaving Russia at the trial in summer 2020.
On Saturday he suddenly got permission to fly to Hamburg to continue rehearsing his latest play at the Thalia Theater.
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When asked how free he now felt, the director replied: "You can't work in the theater without freedom." And further: "We carry our freedom within us.
We don't get them from outside.
It's a question of how we live.
I also felt free when I was locked up.”
The rehearsals for Anton Chekhov's story "The Black Monk" with Russian, German, American, Armenian and Latvian artists began on November 8th in Moscow and have continued in Hamburg since January 4th.
The premiere is scheduled for January 22nd.
After the premiere he will return to Moscow, said Serebrennikov.
"Right after the premiere I have to go back." dpa