The Student

The Student is a 2016 Russian drama film directed by Kirill Serebrennikov based on Marius von Mayenburg's play Märtyrer. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival where it won the François Chalais Prize.The Student also won Best Composer at 2016 European film Awards. Plot Veniamin Yuzhin, nicknamed Vĕnia, is a high school teenager in suburban Russia going through troublesome emotional setbacks following the harsh divorce of his parents and the subsequent disappearance of his father. His mother is a hard-working single parent holding down three jobs in order to keep her only son in school and living in their modest apartment. Venia turns to reading the Bible selectively and intensely in seeking guidance and solace in response to his changed family circumstances. His selective readings from the miniature Bible carried in the back pocket of his jeans make him disruptive in class. He is given to constant moralistic outbursts, quoting favorite Biblical passages with compulsive zeal. As a result, his mother is repeatedly summoned to the principal’s office to sort out Venia’s bizarre behavior. In one instance, after seeing his female classmates wearing bikinis in physical education class, Venia goes on a tirade by loud, obtrusive reading of his favorite Biblical passages on chastity and continence. Although subject to derision by other classmates, the principal of the high school sees merit in his morality campaign and calls for a school code requiring female students to wear only one-piece swimsuits for physical education. One of Venia’s classmates, who walks with a congenital limp, seems attracted to this moral call and befriends the apparently otherwise friendless Venia. Later in the week, Venia takes exception to his high school biology teacher as she is demonstrating to the class the responsible use of condoms for safe sex. Her choice of demonstration involves a show-and-tell segment involving the distribution of raw carrots to all the students in the class with sample condoms in order to teach their proper use, using the carrots as makeshift substitutes for the male organ. Venia sees this demonstration as shameless and morally corrupt, again using his favorite Biblical quotations to support his protest.