Ahead of the “Conversation” that brings him to the 21st Marrakech International Film Festival, exiled Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov sat down with us at the Mamounia for a chat, during which comically, we were gradually joined by several persistent buzzing insects – however not flies, but bees. Asked about his background in theatre and scenography, and how it influenced the extremely sensorial, palpable dimension of his films, where he abolishes the screen as a flat surface and a separation from the public by playfully manipulating it as a material with volume, the filmmaker behind “Leto” (2018), “Petrov’s Flu” (2021), “Tchaikovsky’s Wife“ (2022), and “Limonov: the Ballad” (2024), to name only his latest works (all selected in competition in Cannes), assures that those two passions of his are completely separate – two opposite sides, “like Jekyll and Hyde” – and