The Russian Investigative Committee suspects him of embezzling 68 million rubles. Russian artists have voiced their support for the director.

The Russian Investigative Committee said Kirill Serebrennikov was arrested on the morning of August 22, though the court didn’t issue an arrest warrant. The director is charged with with large-scale fraud and may face up to ten years in jail.

According to investigators, he embezzled “at least 68 million Russian rubles” (around 980,000 euros) in 2011-2014. The money was meant for the theatre project Platform he ran.

A case against Studio Seven was launched in May 2017. The Investigative Committee searched the Serebrennikov’s Gogol Centre theatre and his home. Studio Seven’s former general director Yury Itin and former chief accountant Nina Maslyayeva were detained.

Investigators believe that 3.5 million rubles for A Midsummer Night's Dream were stolen and the performance wasn’t shown, though the show ran both as part of the Platform project and at the Gogol Centre.

Later, the studio’s former general producer and the Gogol Centre’s former director Aleksei Malobrodsky was arrested. He spent a month in custody, which is illegal as a criminal case against him wasn’t opened, Russian news website Meduza writes. Yury Itin was released and placed under house arrest. Serebrennikov was given the status of a witness in the case. His travel passport was seized.

Russian cultural figures, including Oleg Tabakov, Mark Zakharov, Chulpan Khamatova, Vladimir Urin, Yevgeny Mironov, as well as the Theatre Critics Association, the Free Word Association and others supported Serebrennikov and other people involved in the Studio Seven case.

Kirill Serebrennikov was appointed artistic director of the Moscow-based Gogol Drama Theatre in 2012. He transformed it into the Gogol Centre, one of the leading avant-garde theatre venues in Moscow. His films Playing the Victim, Yuri’s Day, Betrayal and The Student won awards at international film festivals.

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