accessability icon facebook instagram calender cart sort info playCarousel icon stopCarousel icon basket icon

Kirill Serebrennikov’s splendid “The Student,” a stormy, swoon-inducingly shot hits as hard and as heavily as a nastoyka hangover.

Variety
  • Archive - Festival 32
  • Director: Kirill Serebrennikov
  • Russia 2016
  • 118 minutes
  • Russian
  • Subtitles in Hebrew, English

Veniamin found God. The Russian teen fanatically reads the Bible over and over, spouting quotes which he takes way too literally. His zealotry begins at swim lessons, where Veniamin refuses to undress for religious reasons. Then he starts to argue the case for Creationism in school. His mother suspects drugs or insecurity, but her son is on a different mission entirely.
Kirill Serebrennikov’s intelligent study of religious fanaticism is based on the German play Martyr by Marius Mayenburg.
Filmography: Betrayal (2012), Yuri’s Day (2008), Playing the Victim (2006), Bed Stories (2004), Ragin (2004).


  • Director Kirill Serebrennikov
  • Production Ilya Stewart, Diana Safarova, Yury Kozyrev
  • Script Kirill Serebrennikov, adapted from the play "Martyr" by Marius von Mayenburg
  • Cinematography Vladislav Opelyants
  • Editing Yury Karikh
  • Music Ilya Demutsky
  • Festivals Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Kinotavr (Best Director Award)
  • Actors Petr Skvortsov, Victoria Isakova, Julia Aug, Alexandr Gorchilin
  • Source Wide Management, Paris

The Student