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Over the weekend, Armando Iannucci's critically acclaimed The Death of Stalin did impressive business upon launching in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, grossing $181,308 for a per-screen average of $45,327 — the second-best average of the year to date behind Black Panther. Moreover, the comedy scored the second-best opening average ever for veteran indie distributor IFC... The movie will be listed on the marquee in a total of nine cities next weekend — including Washington — on its way to rolling out nationwide at the end of the month. Set in 1953, The Death of Stalin is...

On January 23, days before Armando Iannucci's new comedy “The Death of Stalin" was due to premiere in Russia, the Culture Ministry revoked the film’s distribution license. Hours before, the movie was screened for a group state officials who roundly criticized it as a mockery of Soviet history. Human rights activists in Syktyvkar have filed a lawsuit challenging the Culture Ministry’s decision to revoke the distribution license... Why sue in Syktyvkar? The region was tightly integrated with the Soviet Gulag, meaning that nearly every family with local roots dating back a few generations suffered directly because of Stalinism. The activists...

In the run-up to presidential elections, the Kremlin arguably had more to gain from letting the comedy about Stalin appear in theaters than from imposing another ban - Which begs the question: What did they fear would happen if they released “The Death of Stalin”? In their appeal to Culture Minister Medinsky, cultural figures accused the film of “lampooning the history of our country” and “blackening the memory of our citizens who conquered fascism.” The action of the film, however, takes place in 1953 and makes no mention of the war — The only people who could actually take offense...

Armando Iannucci's movie was screened on Thursday and Friday in defiance of the culture ministry's ban. On Friday, police raided the Moscow movie theater Pioner, which screened Armando Iannucci's movie The Death of Stalin, banned in Russia by the culture ministry, news agency TASS reported. By the time several police officers showed up at the theater, located in central Moscow, the 11:50 a.m. screening was already over. A police source, quoted by TASS, said the theater could be fined for screening the movie, whose exhibition license was withdrawn on Tuesday just two days before it was scheduled to open. Meanwhile,...

Stalin’s great-grandson Yakov Dzhugashvili said he had not watched “The Death of Stalin” but nevertheless supported the Russian ministry’s move to withdraw its distribution license. “How can a person be considered a human if death is a reason for them to laugh? That is subhuman,” he told the Govorit Moskva radio station Wednesday. The Kremlin has said Russia’s Culture Ministry did not exercise censorship when it revoked the screening license of a satire on the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The ministry revoked the distribution license for “The Death of Stalin” over “ideological animosity,” two days ahead of its...

“The Death of Stalin” is a British-French political satire about the controversial Soviet leader, directed by Scottish writer Armando Iannucci and based on a graphic novel of the same name. Two days before its premiere, the Russian Ministry of Culture announced that it was withdrawing the screening license...after prominent cultural figures expressed concern over its ideological content at a public screening. “The Death of Stalin' should not be shown in Russia due to signs of 'ideological animosity,’” TASS cited Yuri Polyakov, a member of the ministry’s public council as saying. "The film insults our historical symbols -- the Soviet anthem,...

Russia's culture ministry on Tuesday withdrew permission for the release of British film The Death of Stalin later this week after officials and top arts figures labelled it offensive and "extremist". Armando Iannucci's comedy, which had a world premiere in September, takes a satirical look at the power scramble after Stalin's 1953 death and includes actors playing historical figures such as World War II commander Marshal Georgy Zhukov, Nikita Kruschev and Vyacheslav Molotov. "The distribution certificate for the film 'The Death of Stalin' has been withdrawn," a spokeswoman for the culture ministry told AFP. The ministry said the film's release...