Controversial Russian Film DAU Premieres at Venice Film Festival

The experimental film DAU, directed by Russian dissident Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The project is a monumental work based on the life of Nobel laureate physicist Lev Landau, set in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1968. The film depicts a totalitarian system maintained through fear, spies, and obsessive control. Teodor Currentzis, a Greek Russian conductor, plays the lead role of Landau.

The film's inclusion in the festival sparked controversy. The Ukrainian government contested its presence, describing the work as a tool of propaganda for Moscow. This criticism was partly linked to the fact that Currentzis continues to live and work in Russia without publicly denouncing the war in Ukraine. Khrzhanovskiy, who renounced his Russian citizenship and lives in exile in Germany, defended the inclusion. He stated that everyone pays for their own choices and expressed his wish for peace and for the Ukrainian government to win the war.

DAU is the result of a multidisciplinary project spanning 20 years. Originally conceived as a conventional biopic, it evolved into a massive piece of performance art involving 400 principal roles and roughly 10,000 extras. Some critics have compared the production to a Stalinist Truman Show. The project has also faced long term allegations of misconduct, including reports that actors were controlled and punished by people playing KGB officers.

Other films featured during the same period at the festival include Un Bon Petit Soldat, starring Alba Rohrwacher as a human resources director, and Il fuoco che ti porti dentro, starring Vanessa Scalera. Additionally, Pamela Anderson appeared in the out of competition road movie Place to Be.