What One Film’s Success Reveals About Today’s Russia

Thus, it should come as no surprise that Russian American filmmaker Michael Lockshin’s adaptation kicked up an unholy shitstorm in the land of Bulgakov’s native language. The production—which cost a reported $17 million , making it one of the country’s most expensive movies ever made—was filmed mostly in Russia in 2021 and financed in part by the state-run Cinema Fund. Yet Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the domestic clampdown that followed threw its funding and release into limbo, postponing its Russian debut to January 2024.

So blistering a critique of authoritarianism is Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita that it’s hard to imagine how Vladimir Putin’s Russia could ever have approved a new film adaption. The Soviet-era cult classic, written in the 1930s, exposes the disingenuity of the communist regime by mocking its culture of censorship, bureaucracy, and persecution. Bulgakov brandishes interwoven narratives, fantastical characters, and absurdist flourishes to underscore that truth and memory can persevere even in the face of heavy-handed oppression.

So blistering a critique of authoritarianism is Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita that it’s hard to imagine how Vladimir Putin’s Russia could ever have approved a new film adaption. The Soviet-era cult classic, written in the 1930s, exposes the disingenuity of the communist regime by mocking its culture of censorship, bureaucracy, and persecution. Bulgakov brandishes interwoven narratives, fantastical characters, and absurdist flourishes to underscore that truth and memory can persevere even in the face of heavy-handed oppression.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that Russian American filmmaker Michael Lockshin’s adaptation kicked up an unholy shitstorm in the land of Bulgakov’s native language. The production—which cost a reported $17 million, making it one of the country’s most expensive movies ever made—was filmed mostly in Russia in