Advertising Read more

Moscow (AFP)

Russian police on Friday raided a Moscow cinema after it screened British comedy "Death of Stalin" in defiance of an official ban.

The culture ministry withdrew permission for British director Armando Iannucci's film, which satirises the death of the dictator, on Tuesday after Russian officials labelled it offensive and "extremist."

But Moscow cinema Pioneer, named after the Soviet youth organisation, decided to go ahead with its screenings of the film.

Reports of the cinema's planned defiance led the culture ministry on Thursday to warn movie houses they will bear "legal responsibility" for showing the film.

On Friday, six policemen accompanied by a group of men in civilian clothing went to the cinema following a matinee screening of the film, and at one point held an administrator and other cinema employees behind closed doors.

Asked by an AFP reporter why they were there, the policemen repeatedly refused to give an answer. "We just wanted to go to the cinema at lunch," one said.

Cinema employees did not comment on the decision to screen the film despite the ban and said they were not warned prior to the visit from law enforcement officers. They insisted that a planned evening screening of the film will go ahead.

Pioneer Cinema is owned by oligarch Alexander Mamut and is popular among the Russian liberal elite.

- 'Laughing through tears' -

Following the screening but before the arrival of police, AFP spoke to Russians who watched the film that takes a satirical look at the power scramble after Stalin's 1953 death.

"Now I feel like doing something else that's forbidden, like going to eat some Parmesan," Leonid Parfyonov, a liberal journalist and filmmaker, told AFP as he came out of the screening, in reference to a ban on Western food products in Russia.

Olga Gannushkina, 64, said she was grateful to the cinema for not cancelling the screening and that she welcomed a foreign director making a film about the Soviet dictator. "I think Russians are still scared to laugh about this," she said.

She added that this was not always the case, saying she missed satirical TV shows of the 1990s that made fun of political leaders, including then president Yeltsin. "I wish we still had those shows and that we could laugh at our current leaders, too. It's not a sin," she said.

Other viewers said the film was more of a tragedy than a comedy.

Roman Laing, 25, said he came to the cinema after seeing it was still showing the film on social media.

"It's not actually a comedy, it's a sad film. But as the fate of our country has often been so sad, we are used to laughing through tears," he said.

He admits the film "may have went a little too far" in moments but adds that "it's a shame we (Russians) have still not been able to make films laughing at Stalin".

Writing on Twitter, Death of Stalin's Scottish director Armando Iannucci thanked Russians for "all the messages of support" this week.

"It means a lot. I'm still hoping you get to see the film soon," he wrote.

© 2018 AFP