Sokurov publicly calls on Mikhalkov to help end film censorship in Russia

The acclaimed Russian film director Alexander Sokurov used the occasion of his 75th birthday on Sunday to publish a private letter he wrote to fellow director and head of Russia’s Cinematography Union Nikita Mikhalkov asking for his help to end film censorship in the country.

Sokurov, who continues to live and work in Russia despite his frequent refusal to toe the Kremlin line, explained in a post on his Telegram channel that he had originally written the letter to Mikhalkov, a vocal supporter of Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, in April, passing it on to him through a mutual friend during the Moscow International Film Festival. However, Sokurov added that as Mikhalov hadn’t responded to the appeal two months later, he had decided to make his letter public.

Describing Mikhalkov as “one of the leaders of the Russian state”, and therefore “responsible for the actions of state bodies and their consequences”, Sokurov listed 37 films that had not been released in Russia, including several he directed himself, detailed the “systematic censorship” faced by him and his colleagues, and even suggested that Mikhalkov’s competitors were “being eliminated step by step”.

“Nobody in Russia has as much power as you. If you could find it in your heart to help your — mainly younger — colleagues to get these bans lifted and restore our talented compatriots their constitutional rights, I would be very grateful to you,” Sokurov wrote. 

Despite his two-month radio silence, Mikhalkov responded to Sokurov within hours on Sunday, sending him his best wishes for his birthday and explaining that his decision not to reply to the original letter had been due to Sokurov himself saying openly that he “did not expect an answer”. 

Mikhalkov rejected Sokurov’s assertion that he was part of the Russian leadership, however, which he described as “a position I have never held, do not hold, and will never hold”, and suggested Sokurov “forward this letter to one of the people who actually run the country”. 

This is not the first time Sokurov has risked speaking out against Kremlin censorship. In December, during a meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights attended by Vladimir Putin, Sokurov called Russia’s notorious “foreign agents” law “humiliating” and railed against ever-tighter censorship in the country, saying that Russians still didn’t “know how to have political discussions”.

Mikhalkov, who won an Oscar for his epic historical drama Burnt by the Sun in 1995, is currently under international sanctions after repeatedly praising Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which he once described as being “sent to us by God so that we would finally wake up”.