Kirill Serebrennikov is an optimist and sees himself as an enabler. With the first edition of the KIRILL & FRIENDS BERLIN FESTIVAL, taking place from September 4 to 13, 2026, the director aims to launch nothing less than an international cultural ecosystem.

Kirill Serebrennikov and Vladimir Sorokin

To that end, he has put together a spectacular program with his company Kirill & Friends, which has been based in Berlin since 2023. It will present stage productions that have already been celebrated elsewhere, such as “LEGENDE,” “DER SCHNEESTURM,” “APOCALYPSE TOMORROW,” and “DIE TRAUER DES DÄMONS” for the first time at various venues across the capital, and will feature, among other things, a selection curated by Joël Chapron of films from various sections of the Cannes Film Festival that have not yet been shown in Berlin—and much more.

Above all, however, the 10-day festival is intended to serve as a vibrant platform for artistic exchange, experimentation, and future collaborations. “FRIENDS” is the central concept here—the fuel, the glue. “FRIENDS” stands for an open concept, not a closed circle. It is an invitation to everyone who shares a curiosity about contemporary art and a commitment to artistic freedom within a creative community.

Specifically for the festival, two artistic workshops were organized following an international open call—one on physical theater and one on contemporary music; the results will be presented to the public. There will be public discussions, including with the writer and playwright Vladimir Sorokin and the actor August Diehl. Through the Kirill & Friends initiative of the “Ampersand (&) Grant,” financial support will be provided on an individual basis to artists who, coming from another country, further develop their artistic work in Germany and thereby enrich the local contemporary cultural landscape.

Kirill & Friends operates throughout Europe. Theater, opera, film, and dance projects, as well as exhibitions, are realized in various countries and cultures, with different partners and in different languages.

A festival can bring these diverse worlds together. It is a deliberate counterpoint to the digital wasteland—people in the same place, at the same time, breathing the same air. Serebrennikov has a very clear opinion on this: “Theater is an art of shared presence. Music only comes to life when it is heard here and now. And cinema, no matter how technologically advanced it may become, only truly comes to life when people watch it together in a shared space. A touch should remain a touch, not its digital imitation. Friendship cannot exist online.”

And for Serebrennikov—the wanderer through many worlds—and Kirill & Friends, Berlin is the ideal place for such experiences. It is not only the place where the company has been based since 2023, but above all one of the few cities where it still feels possible to imagine something new—still multilingual, international, contradictory, and open. In this sense, Berlin resembles the development process in a photo lab. Ideas, memories, experiences, and identities—which may still seem fragmented or undefined—gradually become clearer and more visible here. The city helps to reveal new meanings, new connections, and new artistic forms.

Kirill & Friends does not have—and does not need—its own building. With this festival, the company moves freely through theaters, movie theaters, churches, and public spaces. In doing so, it creates a map of Berlin that connects these places through art and invites the audience to discover the city in a new way together with the artists.