Mikhail Lokshin: biography of the director of the new “The Master and Margarita”

Mikhail Arnoldovich Lokshin was born in 1981 in the USA. In 1986, his parents immigrated from the USA to the USSR because of their sympathies for leftist ideas. They also alleged harassment by the FBI. In 2003, Mikhail Lokshin graduated from the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University.

Since 2007, he has been filming commercials and videos, including a video with David Duchovny for the Siberian Crown beer brand. In the first four days after its release, it collected 1.8 million views online. In the advertisement, the actor asks what he would become if he were Russian—and then introduces himself as an astronaut, actor, choreographer, polar explorer and sings the Time Machine song “Turn.”

In 2010, Mikhail Lokshin made his film debut with the short film “The Nail,” and in 2019 he released the short film “Afternoon Delight.” At the end of 2020, his first full-length film was released – the melodrama “Silver Skates”. After its release on the Netflix platform, the film entered the global top viewership, as well as the national tops of Brazil, Mexico, Romania, Greece, Hungary and Chile. In Russia, the film received three Nika awards (Best Production Design, Best Costume Design and Best Editing) and six Golden Eagle awards, including the prize for best feature film.

Since 2021, he has been working on the film adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”. The film’s budget was 1.2 billion rubles. According to media reports, the Cinema Fund allocated 800 million rubles, part of the amount was contributed by American investors. The premiere took place on January 25, 2024; during the first weekend at the box office, the film collected about 428 million rubles.

After the premiere of “The Master and Margarita,” screenshots of Mikhail Lokshin’s alleged page on the social network Facebook (owned by Meta, which is recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation) were published online. They contain records condemning the special operation and financial support for military documentary filmmakers in Ukraine.