Director: Kirill Serebrennikov
Limonov: The Ballad is a 2024 biographical drama directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. The film follows Eduard Limonov, a Russian writer whose life moved across three continents and several decades of the twentieth century.
What is Limonov: The Ballad about?
The story tracks a restless figure who is by turns a poet, an emigre, and a public provocateur. Beginning in the Soviet Union, it follows him westward to New York, where he lives on the margins of the city, taking odd jobs while writing about his own experience. Later chapters move to Paris, where he gains recognition as an author, and eventually back to Russia, where he becomes involved in political movements. The narrative is built less as a single plot than as a sweep of episodes, each capturing a different phase of a life spent in constant reinvention and in friction with the societies around him.
Cast & crew
Ben Whishaw plays the central role, carrying the film across its many time periods and shifts in tone. The supporting ensemble includes Viktoriya Miroshnichenko, Masha Mashkova, Evgeny Mironov, and Tomas Arana. Serebrennikov, who both directed and co-wrote the screenplay, stages the material with the stylized, theatrical approach that has marked much of his earlier work.
Context & significance
The film is adapted from Emmanuel Carrere's 2011 biographical novel about its subject, a book that drew wide attention in Europe. It premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024 and was made as a co-production among French, Italian, and Spanish companies. Running roughly 133 minutes and presented largely in English, it uses one man's life as a lens onto the political and cultural changes of Russia, the United States, and Western Europe during the second half of the twentieth century. The events depicted span the Cold War era and the years that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Where & how to watch
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