No Stars for War

Independent outlet Meduza reported that 12 Russian critics refused to rate Marik, a pro-war television series about a veteran of the Russian War on Ukraine who returns to a destroyed Mariupol. A critics’ scorecard for premieres at the Pilot series festival angered pro-war bloggers, who accused the reviewers of "Russophobia." 

Marik was screened at Pilot, a television series festival in Ivanovo. Its protagonist, Marik, returns from Ukrainian captivity to his native Mariupol, which has been seized by Russia, and begins working as an ambulance doctor. The series was filmed in Mariupol, a city devastated by the war. Although the destruction is visible on screen, viewers are repeatedly encouraged to see the city as being reborn.

The series was produced by Vsemirnye Russkiye Study ("World Russian Studios"). In recent years, the company has made projects including the "patriotic" melodrama Landyshy (“Lilies of the Valley”), in which a woman leaves a wealthy fiancé for a police lieutenant from Vologda, who later goes off to fight in Ukraine. That series was backed by the Institut Razvitiya Interneta ("Institute for Internet Development"), or IRI, as was Marik.

Marik was directed by Yegor Beroev, an actor best known for playing Erast Fandorin in a film adaptation of a novel by Boris Akunin. Beroev has supported Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine from its first days. Marik is his third directing project and his first series.

Attendees of the festival said that when the production team came out to present the project at Pilot, a noticeable part of the audience got up and left. Later, 12 of the 19 critics publicly rating Pilot premieres declined to score Marik. In the final scorecard, posted June 21, they marked the title with an X, meaning "conflict of interest, missed screening, or personal decision." Three critics gave the series half a star out of five, three gave it one star, and one gave it three. Beroev’s drama finished with the festival’s lowest score: 1.07 out of 5.

The scorecard was an initiative of the critics themselves; they are not part of the Pilot jury. Still, the public boycott revived claims about a "fifth column" in Russian culture. Pro-war figures, including Zakhar Prilepin, regularly complain that Russia lacks books, films, and plays glorifying war participants, and that cultural figures offer the public escapism at best and "enemy" narratives at worst.

One widely shared post appeared on June 25, posted by pro-war journalist Alexander Kots, whose Kotsnews telegram channel has nearly half a million subscribers. He wrote that most of the critics “stay silent” about the war, but treat "some Russophobic cinematic trash" as "new sincerity," while putting a "cross" next to works about the war.

Dozens of pro-war Telegram channels shared the post, including actor and State Duma deputy Dmitry Pevtsov, a staunch supporter of the invasion. Propagandist Andrei Medvedev also weighed in, saying the critics work not for "Soros and the [U.S.] State Department," but for major Russian film outlets.