The Master and Margarita - Michael Lockshin

Woland - The master and Margarita - Michael Lockshin

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How it started

In October 2018, we published the news about the Russian director Nikolai Lebedev and his plans to make a screen adaptation of The Master and Margarita. Despite the fact that this project was supported by some heavyweights from the Russian film and television world, we could not resist to bring this news with caution.

Rightly so, as it turned out, because the American producers Svetlana Migunova-Dali and Grace Loh, supported by David Lang, who had acquired the rights for an English-language film adaptation, demanded damages from Lebedev's production company, Mars Media, for they had planned to translate the film Lebedev had yet to make into English and release it in English-speaking countries. However, this went against Sergey Shilovsky's agreement with Migunova-Dali and Loh, namely that a parallel Russian-language film adaptation was possible, but that the producers were not permitted to translate the film into English, not even with subtitles.

Mars Media responded by filing a lawsuit against Sergey Shilovsky and Daria Shilovskaya, demanding 115 million rubles (1.24 million euros), claiming that the film rights to The Master and Margarita had been sold to both them and the American company, and the project had stalled due to the claim from the United States. The dispute was eventually resolved in April 2020 after the Shilovskys promised to «refund most of the money», which apparently happened.

Exit of Nikolai Lebedev and entry of Michael Lockshin

One year after the Shilovsky affair, in April 2021,, the production house Mars Media announced that Nikolai Lebedev's film plans were canceled. According to producer Ruben Dishdishyan, financing problems and the Covid-19 pandemic were at the basis of the decision.

At the same time, however, Dishdishyan announced that the project had not been completely abolished. The company is now working on a film entitled Woland, which would be made by director Michael Lockshin, who debuted in 2020 with the film Серебряные коньки [Serebryanye konki] or The Silver Skates. Lockshin grew up in the United States and Russia, and commutes between Moscow, Berlin and Los Angeles for his work. He mainly has experience with advertising films for Nike and McDonalds, among others.

Michael Lockshin

The screenplay for the film Woland was written by the Russian Roman Kantor. It's not quite faithful a representation of the story of The Master and Margarita as we know it from the novel, but it was clearly inspired by it. It's about a famous writer standing in the middle of a scandal. He has written a novel that has been banned, and his play's premiere is canceled shortly after that. Despite these setbacks, the writer starts writing a new novel, in which Moscow is visited by a mysterious foreigner named Woland. Woland's primary aim is to punish anyone who has wronged the writer. Together with his striking entourage, he does this sometimes comically, sometimes gruesomely. At the same time, the writer falls in love with Margarita. But she is married and, as he soon discovers, she will never leave her husband. As desperation grows, the writer begins to lose his grip on reality and begins to believe that only Woland can help him to be together with Margarita.

The shootings

Initially there were doubts whether it would really come to a film this time. After all, Mars Media is the production company which, in August 2014, had announced that it was preparing an ambitious TV series about Mikhail Bulgakov's life. The title was Жизнь и искушения Михаила Булгакова [Zhizn i iskusheniya Mikhaila Bulgakova] or The Life and Temptations of Mikhail Bulgakov, and the above-mentioned Ruben Dishdishyan, the one who announced the news of the Woland production, was supposed to be one of the producers of the series. But it didn't happen.

But the shootings for Woland started on July 5, 2021, and the film should be premiered on January 1, 2023 and it was announced that the film would premiere on January 1, 2023. The intention had been to keep the actors' names secret for a while, but a few weeks before filming began, on May 19, 2021, at an event of the Russian Film Fund, the names of the protagonists of the film Woland were unintentionally revealed. Due to a technical error, the microphones were not switched off when they were announced to a select group. The next day, the product company Mars Media could only confirm the growing rumours. The roles of the master and Margarita will be played by Yevgeny Tsyganov and his wife Julia Snigir. Tsyganv became internationally known for his role in Anna Melikian's film Mermaids from 2007. Snigir became known for leading roles in the television series Catherine the Great in 2015, and The Road to Calvary in 2017.

On July 22, 2021, he Hollywood news website Deadline announced that the German actor August Diehl (°1976) would play the role of Woland. Diehl is known for his roles in Inglorious Bastards, directed by Quentin Tarantino in 2009, The Young Karl Marx, directed by Raoul Peck in 2017, and A Hidden Life, directed by Terrence Malick in 2019.

For the role of Behemoth, the production house would like to realise a three-dimensional animation as we know it from the technologies which the Disney Company developed in 2019 for the remake of The Lion King..

Nikolai Lebedev, who wrote the original script for the film (which was then still called The Master and Margarita), but who suddenly had to focus on another film, commented on the unexpected turn of events and could not completely hide his disappointment: «This project was an important part of my life. I worked with my heart and soul to develop it and I deeply regret that for reasons beyond my control I couldn't finish it. But as François Truffaut once said: ‘The history of cinema is full of painful disappointments’. Let's move on».

On November 8, 2021, actress Julia Snigir announced on her Instagram account that the shooting for the film was complete, and on Jauary 20, 2022, the Russian branch of Universal Pictures International and Mars Media announced that they had signed an agreement under which UPI will act as a distributor of the film.

On February 9, 2022, the company launched a trailer of the film which you can watch here with English subtitles.

Troubles at completion

On February 24, 2022, the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops began. This attack would affect the completion and distribution of Lockshin's film in more than one way.

On July 20, 2022, it was announced that the film was re-scheduled to be released in May 2023 due to «production delays».

In August 2022, it became known that the film was stuck in post-production as a result of Universal Pictures pulling out of Russia due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moreover, the Kremlin-controlled Фонд Кино [Fond Kino] or the Federal Fund for Economic and Social Support for Russian Cinematography declined to provide further funding for the film. This refusal may well have to do with director Michael Lockshin's attitude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In March 2022, the State Duma passed a law punishing «the spread of disinformation». Whoever uses the word «war» instead of the official term «Special military intervention in Ukraine» is risking 15 years in prison. The withdrawal of the film's post-production budget came shortly after Michael Lockshin was informed that the government had screenshots of his Instagram account, where he had posted Western coverage of the war. He also publishes messages about the atrocities of the Russian soldiers in Ukraine on his Facebook page. As a result, the fate of his film Woland - which itself is partly about censorship - is now uncertain. Due to the cessation of financing, the expensive special effects such as the talking cat cannot be realized. «So now we're being censored not only in the West, but in Russia itself,» Lockshin said, not stopping there.

Indeed, Lockshin had also said that he was pleased that the Cannes Film Festival had accepted Kirill Serebrennikov's film Жена Чайковского [Zhena Tchaikovsky] or The Wife of Tchaikovsky to participate tot the competition. Serebrennikov, known for contemporary productions that are often directly related to political themes, was arrested on staged accusations on August 2017. You can read the story about this elsewhere on this website. It is clear that the Kremlin cannot appreciate this support from Lockshin to Serebrennikov.

The production house Mars Media launched a new trailer for the film. And immediately they announced that the title had been changed. Woland will now simply become The Master and Margarita. That would be intended to «combine the power and the spirit of the novel with the story we want to tell the audience in our film». It was confirmed that the film would be released in 2023, but an exact date could not be given yet.

On July 11, 2023, the fact that director Michael Lockshin has clearly spoken out against the war in Ukraine continues to play tricks on the production company. Yesterday they announced that the film would be distributed by Атмосфера кино [Atmosfera Kino], and the release of the film was postponed again: it would now be January 25, 2024.

January 25, 2024

And indeed, on January 25, 2024, Michael Lockshin's film The Master and Margarita was released in Russian cinemas. You can read all about it by clicking on the link below.

Click here to read everything about this film

Problems with international distribution

The film was released in Germany and Austria on May 1, 2025, and in Italy on June 5, 2025.

But when the distribution company Luminosity Pictures also wanted to release an English-language version for screening in the United Kingdom and the United States, Svetlana Migunova-Dali and Grace Loh tried to prevent this and succeeded in stopping the premiere, even though they themselves had filmed not even half a second of their project.

On February 11, 2025, Luminosity Pictures filed a lawsuit against both Migunova-Dali and Loh at the California Central District Court to lift their block

Click here to follow the progress of the case

The impact of the court's ruling will be broader than the interests of the distributor. Luminosity Pictures argues that the novel The Master and Margarita is in the public domain, and that therefore no one can claim rights to it. If the court follows this reasoning, anyone who wants to make an adaptation of the novel in the future - film, theatre, opera or whatever - would be freed for good from the suffocating claims of Sergei Shilovsky, Bulgakov's self-proclaimed «grandson».

Click here to read more on Sergey Shilovsky

Was the screenplay stolen?

In 2021, when the film was still announced as Woland, and when Nikolai Lebedev was replaced as director by Michael Lockshin, co-producer Ruben Dishdishan announced that the screenplay was written by the Russian playwright Roman Sergeevich Kantor. But doubts about this later surfaced.

Shortly after the premiere, an indignant response to the film by Elena Youschenko appeared on social media. Youschenko had translated The Master and Margarita into English as a diploma project. 15 years and 8 revisions later, she self-published her translation in 2021. In 1919 she described her experiences with this in an essay entitled Peculiarities of translation «Master and Margarita». She regularly publishes her quirky but original view of the novel, its author and the opinions of others on social media.

In her response to the film, Youschenko said on February 13, 2024 that she had already written the screenplay for this film in 2019 and she accused the makers, and in particular co-producer Leonard Blavatnik, of having stolen her screenplay:

«In 2020 I found contact of Leonard Blavatnik, […] the main producer of the possible movie by Baz Luhrmann. However the great director did not make up his mind to write the screenplay, as he always did.

Initially I got Blavatnik email to remind him in 3 months about my work. In three months his assistant Danny Cohen wrote to me to request my script to evaluate it.

As you can understand nobody ever has come back to me with any feedback, as my script has been protected both by ID by WGA and National Library. Thus any copy or reproduction of any part of my work on the territory of USA has been out of the question. However any copyright on the territory of Russia does not exist as it is and you will never prove any extract is refurbished on the screen even after any conclusion by the authorized professional».

On May 1, 2024, she continued: «I have hardly made it possible to produce another film under the same title ‘The Master and Margarita’. Though it was not protected by Russian laws in cinematography, as I did not have the slightest idea how producers made up their minds to use my English script in Russia by English-speaking director».

I don't know whether Elena Youschenko will take further action, and what effect this could have on a possible distribution of the film outside the countries of the former Soviet Union. In any case, we will keep you informed of possible new developments.