Danila Kozlovsky physically disappeared from the film festival jury

The artist was sent to forced remote work

The Mayak Festival of Contemporary Russian Cinema is being held in Gelendzhik for the first time. One of the jury members was actor Danila Kozlovsky, but they never saw him live.

There is no main national film festival, as Kinotavr was for several decades. Attempts to create an alternative to it continue. Times have changed, so for the pilot release of “Mayak” it is important to abandon the star trails and glamor, show honest cinema and in three years become no worse than the Cannes Film Festival.

The new film screening opened in a businesslike manner: they came, watched, discussed.

The jury, led by experienced producer Igor Tolstunov, who once directed Kinotavr, included: film artist Nadezhda Vasilyeva-Balabanova, film critic and producer Lev Karakhan, film director Alexey Popogrebsky, actress Anya Chipovskaya, as well as actor and director Danila Kozlovsky, whom we love and didn’t see it. Unexpectedly for many, he will work remotely.

There was immediate talk among filmmakers that Kozlovsky was in the USA, where his wife and daughter live, and therefore could not come. Meanwhile, he is in Moscow and has not left anywhere. And he is not the kind of person who, having agreed to work on the jury, suddenly evaporates. Not the same caliber of actor and person. Kozlovsky is a professional.

Even on the eve of the festival, we managed to find out that because of Kozlovsky’s potential participation in the jury, some cultural officials fidgeted and acted proactively. Apparently, they put pressure on the management of the newly created festival, leaving them no choice. And what happened was what happened. We saw Kozlovsky only on the screen in the presentation list of jury members, but not in the auditorium. It is likely that he himself proposed such a way out so as not to set anyone up, as was recently the case with his theater.

Let us recall that in May the Maly Drama Theater – Theater of Europe under the leadership of Lev Dodin was forced to suspend its activities because Roskomnadzor revealed violations of sanitary standards, lack of inventory numbers on mops, and so on. All this, according to representatives of this organization, posed a threat to the life and health of actors and spectators. The performances were cancelled. Spectators who came with tickets to the performances “Hamlet” and “Cunning and Love” saw announcements about their cancellation. Danila Kozlovsky was involved in them. Tickets are refundable.

Telegram channels immediately reported that Lev Dodin was given an unconditional condition – to fire Kozlovsky for his disloyal position regarding what is happening in the country. The theater soon resumed work and paid a fine of 15 thousand rubles for violating sanitary requirements. And Danila Kozlovsky took leave until the end of 2023 for personal reasons. Now he has been suspended from full-time work on the jury. He will not be able to watch the films of his comrades and colleagues on the big screen.