Michael Lockshin’s Russian-language adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” is finally getting a long-awaited U.S. theatrical release.
Following a lengthy battle, Luminosity Pictures are rolling the movie out Stateside from Sept. 18, Variety can confirm.
Based on Bulgakov’s seminal, semi-autobiographical work, “The Master and Margarita” follows the story of a writer in 1930s Moscow. After being censored, he writes a new novel in which the Devil appears to wreak havoc on those who have wronged the author. It stars August Diehl, Yevgeny Tsyganov, Yuliya Snigir and Claes Bang, among others.
Lockshin completed the movie just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By the time it was ready for release in Jan. 2024, its themes of censorship and resistance were deemed too controversial by the Kremlin, which criticized both Lockshin, who has been public in his support for Ukraine, and the movie and insisted on removal of scenes.
Despite that, Lockshin’s work saw huge box office in the country, becoming the highest-grossing 18+ release in Russian history. International distribution was delayed after sanctions against Russia saw the film caught up in complex legal wrangling, intensified by competing claims by self-proclaimed rights-holders to Bulgakov’s original text.
