Russian Culture Ministry has pulled off its permission for the release of Armando Iannucci's satirical comedy movie The Death of Stalin after top art figures and officials called the movie offensives and extremist.
Iannucci, 54, directed film depicts the back-stabbing and in-fighting among the then Soviet Union leader's closest allies immediately after Stalin's death in 1953.
The Russian Culture Minister, Vladimir Medinsky said Tuesday that his ministry received some complaints about the movies which prompted him to withdraw the release permit. Medinsky released a statement Tuesday where he said,
Many people of the older generation, and not only, will regard it as an insulting mockery of all the Soviet past, of the country that defeated fascism and of ordinary people, and what’s even worse, even of the victims of Stalinism
The statement further adds,
We don't have censorship. We are not afraid of critical and unpleasant a s sessments of our history. But there is a moral line between the critical analysis of our history and desecrating it.
However, Iannucci, the film's director said that he had believed the Russian authorities would perform a U-turn.
A Russian Communist Party has called the film ''a form of psychological pressure against our country. Whereas Pavel Pozhigailo, a culture committee member said, the film ''insults our historic symbols-the Soviet anthem, orders, and medals."
The Satirical comedy had a world premiere in September last year which included actors playing historical figures like World War II commander Nikita Kruschev, Georgy Zhukov, and Vyacheslav Molotov besides the satirical look at the scramble after Stalin's death. The movie collected four British Independent Film Awards in 2017
