Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s new film Petrov’s Flu ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in July.

Based on the novel The Petrovs In And Around Flu by Alexey Sainikov, Petrov’s Flu is described as a “deadpan, hallucinatory romp through Post-Soviet Russia”.

“With the city in the throes of a flu epidemic, the Petrov family struggles through yet another day in a country where the past is never past, the present is a booze-fuelled, icy fever dream of violence and tenderness, and where – beneath layers of the ordinary – things turn out to quite extraordinary,” reads a new official description.

It will be Serebrennikov’s third feature to premiere in Cannes after religious drama The Student, which played in Un Certain Regard in 2016, and Russian rock scene drama Leto, which debuted in Competition in 2018.

The ensemble cast features Semyon Serzin, who appeared in Leto, Chulpan Khamatova, who is known for her roles in Good Bye, Lenin! and more recently The White Crow, Yulia Peresild, Yura Borisov and Yuri Kolokolnikov, whose credits include Game Of Thrones and Tenet. 

The feature is produced by Moscow-based Hype Film in co-production with Charades Productions, Logical Pictures, Bord Cadre Films, Razor Film Production and Sovereign Films, with the support of Kinoprime, Arte France Cinema and ZDF.

Bac Film will release the film in France and Charades is handling international sales.

Theatre and film director Serebrennikov was unable to accompany Leto to Cannes in 2018 because he was under house arrest on disputed corruption charges and it remains to be seen whether he will make it this time. 

“We don’t know if he will be able to make it and if he does, we don’t know if he will be able to go back,” commented Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux at the Official Selection press conference on June 3, adding the festival was working hard behind the scenes to ensure his presence. 

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