Again and again, the house arrest of the Russian theater, opera and film director Kirill Serebrennikow was extended, most recently in the past week until 4 July. Now the competent Moscow court reversed this completely surprising, as the Russian news agency Interfax reports.
The 49-year-old may not leave the city without permission from the police; his passport has moved in. Serebrennikov said after the decision that he now wanted to work unhindered again. Human rights activists welcomed the decision of the court.
The director, also known in Germany, who staged several times at the famous Bolshoi Theater, was arrested in August 2017. He is accused of misappropriation of state subsidies amounting to 133 million rubles (about two million euros).
Staging out of house arrest
He himself had repeatedly rejected the allegations. Supporters spoke of trying to intimidate the Kremlin critic and his artistic environment. Shortly after the arrest of Serebrennikov, the artistic director of the Berlin Schaubühne, Thomas Ostermeier, called for solidarity, and 34 artists and actors, including Cate Blanchett, joined forces.
Despite the house arrest and without Internet and telephone, the director managed to work artistically. At the time of his arrest, filming of his film "Leto" ("Summer"), which premiered in Cannes in 2018 without him, was filmed. Through his lawyer and other helpers, he also sent several directing instructions via USB stick to opera companies, most recently for "Così fan Tutte" in Zurich, "Hänsel und Gretel" at the Stuttgart Opera and "Nabucco" in Hamburg. At the end of March, he received the prestigious Russian film award "Nika" - for best director.