CANNES, France — Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov used his appearance at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday to launch a protest against the detention and trial of a playwright and a theater director in Moscow.

Mr. Serebrennikov — who premiered his film Limonov: The Ballad at the movie extravaganza — held up a picture of Russian director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk at a news conference in the French Riviera resort town.

“Today the trial started of these amazing young women,” he said. “They didn’t do anything wrong, they just staged a play that won a national theater award. And for a year now they have been jailed.”

Both have been held on charges of “justifying terrorism” through the play Finist, the Brave Falcon — written by Ms. Petriychuk and premiered in 2020 under Berkovich’s direction — which is about Russian women who married Islamic State fighters.

The trial started on Monday, Russian media reported.

OPPOSING TERRORISM
Ms. Berkovich and Ms. Petriychuk told a court on Monday they were not guilty of charges of justifying terrorism on the first day of their trial over the staging of an award-winning play, Mediazona reported.

The case has become a focus for fellow artists, human rights defenders and free speech campaigners, with an open letter in their support garnering more than 16,000 signatures.

The two women told a Moscow military court they had set out to advocate against terrorism, not to support it, according to a transcript of the hearing published by independent outlet Mediazona, which reports on Russian trials.

“I staged the performance to prevent terrorism,” Ms. Berkovich, 39, told the court, Mediazona reported. Towards terrorists, she said, “I have nothing but condemnation and disgust.”

Ms. Petriychuk, 44, echoed Ms. Berkovich and denied any guilt.

“It is unlikely that Islamic radicals would use modern theater to promote their ideas, because they sort of forbid these types of art,” she said, according to the report.

The women were added to Russia’s official list of “terrorists and extremists” in April, joining thousands of people and entities who have been similarly designated in a crackdown on perceived subversive activity that intensified after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Kremlin does not comment on individual cases but says Russia is engaged in an existential struggle with the West and needs to robustly uphold its laws and defend itself.

The offense of providing justification for terrorism can lead to up to seven years in prison.

More people have been prosecuted in Russia in the past six years than in the almost 30 years under the rule of Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, according to data analyzed by independent outlet Proekt.

LIMONOV: THE BALLAD
Mr. Serebrennikov’s film, which stars Ben Whishaw in the title role, premiered at Cannes on Sunday.

It follows Limonov from the 1960s in his hometown of Kharkiv to Moscow, New York, Paris, and finally to post-Soviet Russia, where he co-founded a left-wing and ultra-nationalist political party in the early 1990s.

Limonov: The Ballad — based on a book by French author Emmanuel Carrere — shows the main character’s journey from poet to aspiring political leader, with a postscript saying he supported Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea before his death in 2020.

The Cannes festival has banned official Russian delegations from attending since 2022, but Mr. Serebrennikov, who has spoken out against the invasion of Ukraine, also attended that year with his film Tchaikovsky’s Wife. — Reuters

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