The Black Monk / The Чёрный Mönch / Le Moine Noir

Andrey Kovrin, overworked intellectual who dreams of liberty and glory, decides to retire to the country house of his old friend Pesotsky and his daughter Tanya to get some rest. As he sits in the garden, he sees the ghost of a monk, who will haunt his stay and eventually drive him mad. Adapting this short story, Kirill Serebrennikov remembers that Anton Chekhov depicts characters lost in the “infernal circle” of peculiar truths. Nothing less could shrink their field of vision so. The director also remembers that the story is made up of many personal stories that clash and weave together into a complex ensemble: that of a truth no one can hold alone. A challenge to which the dissident artist responds by showing the same story from the point of view of each of the protagonists, and by multiplying perspectives and vanishing points. Meanwhile Hecate, the goddess of evil moons which haunt the stage, watches over all…