Cinema
Cinema
Ai Weiwei's Turandot
FIFA
About
Presented at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto in 2025, the film follows Chinese artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei as he takes his first steps as an opera director, invited by the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome to revisit Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot. Composed nearly a century ago, the work remains remarkably relevant today and echoes, in many ways, Ai Weiwei’s own journey and struggles.
Through an immersive look at rehearsals and the creative process, the film reveals how this ambitious project becomes a natural undertaking for an artist whose work has consistently questioned power and championed freedom of expression.
Première québécoise
Sélection officielle - longs-métrages
Director's statement
In 1922, my great-grandfather, Florestano Belli, joined the orchestra of the Rome Opera House as first violinist. Almost a century later, in 2018, I was working in the same opera house as a filmmaker. Every time I found myself in front of the orchestra pit, I thought this: is it by chance that almost a century later, I’m working in the same place where my great-grandfather worked? Or is it destiny? I will probably never know, nevertheless, because of this, I was driven to make something special about this magical, ancestral space. A documentary is what I had immediately imagined, and I decided to wait until the right production came along. When I heard about Ai Weiwei’s Turandot, I knew it would be the perfect project, because it wouldn’t be just any opera, but much, much more.
I always knew Ai Weiwei to be a symbol for freedom of speech, a fighter for human rights, a revolutionary who uses art in all mediums as a provocative tool to deliver his humanistic message to the world, and I had developed some kind of artistic kinship with him. Since I grew up in a family where freedom of speech was challenged, I felt Ai Weiwei’s values resonated very closely with my own.
My father, Vladimir Derevianko, a Bolshoi first ballet dancer, had to escape from Russia in 1982, because his individuality and his freedom were threatened by the Communist dictatorship. Living closely with the notion that my father fought for artistic freedom, as well as Ai Weiwei’s mantra that, “Everything is art. Everything is politics.”, I was inspired to create this documentary about the power of art.
Initially, when we started shooting in February 2020, I was trying to make a documentary about Ai Weiwei’s creative process. Then something unimaginable happened. Coronavirus started spreading, and suddenly the pandemic started. Theaters, cinemas, museums and art in general were the first things to come to a standstill, and eventually close. For a moment, art loses all its meaning and its power; art and the artists are challenged about their existence. Through all this, the documentary evolved, and became not only about Ai Weiwei's creative process, but also asked the questions, “What is art?” and “Why do we need it?” The production was back two years later, and of course everything had a very different perception. Staging this opera did not simply mean opening a curtain and playing music for a few hours, it meant delivering a message of love and of freedom of expression, whereby artists are the fighters, activists and symbols of these values, like in all of Ai Weiwei’s works.
- Maxim Derevianko
Biography
Maxim Derevianko
Filmographie | Quelques films :
Ars Erotica (2023)
Origen (2021)
Le creature di Prometeo (2021)
Cellos & Drums (2018)
BodyPieces (2013)
Maxim Derevianko has been the official filmmaker of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma since December 2015. In this role, he has directed promotional videos, trailers, and multicamera live streamings for all opera and ballet productions.
He has collaborated with internationally renowned directors such as Sofia Coppola, Emma Dante, William Kentridge, and Damiano Michieletto, as well as choreographers and dancers including Roberto Bolle, Eleonora Abbagnato, and Angelin Preljocaj. Alongside his artistic work, Derevianko has created commercial projects for brands such as Bulgari, Dior, and Fiat.
Prior to this, he directed the science-fiction short film BodyPieces, which received several international festival awards, including Best Actor at the New York City International Film Festival, Best Film Debut at Grenzland Filmtage in Selb, Germany, and the Audience Award at the Tolfa Short Film Festival in 2013. The film was also an official selection at the Courtoujours Film Festival in Geneva in 2014 and at the Rome International Film Festival in 2013.
Biographical notes provided by the film production team and edited by Le FIFA's team
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