THE STUDENT

Veniamin (Pjotr Skworzow), a schoolboy in a Russian city, has discovered the Bible after his parents’ divorce – and reads it literally. He refuses to train alongside girls in swimsuits during swimming lessons, disrupts sex education, fights the teaching of evolution, and confronts his mother Inga (Julia Aug). The adults stand helpless before his certainty, the school administration backs away; only the biology teacher Elena (Viktoria Issakowa) stands up to him. And only his classmate Grigori (Alexander Gortschilin) follows him. “The Student” (“Utschenik”, 2016) by the Russian Kirill Serebrennikov is based on the play “Martyr” by Marius von Mayenburg.

Kirill Serebrennikov of Russia reads one individual’s religious zeal as a portrait of a society capitulating before certainties, and drives the school story to the point of violence. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes in 2016, where the film received the Prix François Chalais; at the European Film Awards, its score was honoured. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2016.

Shown at the 2016 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2016 · Film Archive