Kirill Serebrennikov

Kirill Semyonovich Serebrennikov (born 7 September 1969) is a Russian stage and film director and theatre designer. Since 2012, he has been the artistic director of the Gogol Center in Moscow. He is one of Russia's leading theatre and cinema directors and winner of numerous international awards. In 2017 he was arrested for alleged embezzlement of the state funds given to the Seventh Studio, a cultural institution he headed. Serebrennikov spent almost 2 years under house arrest. A key witness confessed that she made accusations under pressure from the investigators, and the judge was changed. Media, international cultural community and human rights activists unanimously considered the case politically motivated and fabricated because Serebrennikov was known for his liberal and LGBT-friendly stances that opposes Russian official conservative positions. In June 2020, Serebrennikov was sentenced guilty and given three years of probation. In March 2022 the sentence was cancelled. Biography Family and early years Serebrennikov was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russian SFSR to a Jewish father and a Ukrainian mother. His father was a surgeon, while his mother was a teacher of Russian language and literature. Having graduated from Rostov State University with majors in physics in 1992. Serebrennikov had no formal theatre education prior to his stage director debut in 1994. Kirill’s grandfather Alexander Ivanovich Litvin was a film director and screenwriter, he worked at Moldova-Film in (1953–1972) and was titled an Honored Culture Worker of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.