Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2021: #60. Kirill Serebrennikov’s Petrov’s Flu

Petrov’s Flu

Russia’s Kirill Serebrennikov 2004 film Ragin, based on a Chekov story, won the East of West Award at Karlovy Vary and 2008’s Yuriy’s Day picked up several awards in Locarno. In 2012, Betrayal competed in Venice, and 2016’s The Student went to Un Certain Regard in Cannes and he quickly followed this with 2018’s Leto – his first comp film. For his eighth feature, Serebrennikov, still unable to leave Moscow despite being released from house of arrest in April of 2019, has completed Petrov’s Flu, based on Alexey Salnikov’s (a contemporary writer compared to Bulgakov or Gogol) novel The Petrovs in Various Stages of the Flu (he scripted the project while under house arrest). The Russian-Swiss-German-French co-production (through France’s Logical Pictures and Charades Productions, Russia’s Hype Film, Germany’s Razor Film and Switzerland’s Bord Cadre) will star Chulpan Khamatova (Good Bye Lenin!, 2003; Under Electric Clouds, 2015) and Semyon Serzin (of Serebrennikov’s Leto, 2018).

Gist: The story of an ordinary Yekaterinburg family that hide their secret desires under a layer of constant routine. While Petrov lives his life in a parallel comic universe, his wife is a librarian with manic inclinations.

Release Date/Prediction: A trailer dropped for Petrov’s Flu in July of 2020 suggesting the title had been primed for a slot in the Cannes program. We expect Serebrennikov to appear in the main competition in Berlin 2021 or perhaps hold out several months longer for Cannes 2021.