YUMORIST

When he is forced to perform at the birthday party of an elite politician’s wife, he blows his top and takes revenge. Set in the 1980s, the film shows a country in which power and decadence were not far apart and the collapse of the USSR was imminent. © JFBB With a keen sense for the uncomfortable position of a privileged person who is flattered by the powerful and yet soon finds himself under the spotlight if he refuses to play the harmless fool, director and screenwriter Michael Idov narrates a multi-faceted portrait of an artist. Despite the surreal scenes this is anything but a comedy: instead Boris is doomed to telling cheap jokes for a mass audience and giving private shows for the nomenklatura. His fame offers no protection: if anything, he's more vulnerable as a result and, in the end, risks his life. Michael Idov, who also wrote the screenplay for Kirill Serebrennikov's LETO (FFC 2018), creates in THE HUMORIST a tragic clown whose story draws inspiration from real-life figures. BB