Russian film makes finals at Cannes

Russian director Alexander Sokurov is taking his third film to Cannes after it was picked to be screened at the festival.

Faust, the fourth film of his tetralogy on the corrupting effects of power, is inspired by a medieval German legend of a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in return for infinite knowledge, and draws from works by Goethe and Thomas Mann.

The earlier three installments include biographical studies of Adolf Hitler (Moloch, 1999), Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin (Taurus, 2000) and former Japanese Emperor Hirohito (The Sun, 2004).

Faust will be Sokurov’s third film to appear at Cannes, following Alexandra in 2007 and Father and Son in 2003.

Producer Andrei Sigle said in a 2009 Variety magazine article that the 12 million euro film “reflects Sokurov’s enduring attempts to understand man and his inner forces.”

MOSCOW, May 18 (RIA Novosti)

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