Death of Stalin, The: Iannucci’s Award-Winning Satire of Soviet Power Play

February 11, 2017 by

Winner of Best Screenplay of the 2018 National Society of Film Critics

IFC Films bought North American rights to The Death of Stalin out of the Berlin Film Fest’s European Film Market.

The film is a comic look at how Joseph Stalin’s stroke in 1953 threw the USSR into chaos and inspired a mad power play among his top advisers.

It reunites IFC with Armando Iannucci, the writer and director of In the Loop, which earned Iannucci an Oscar nomination for screenplay.

He also created the Emmy-winning political satire “Veep” for HBO.

Adrian McLoughlin plays Stalin.  The all-star cast made this a hot title at Berlin. It includes Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Michael Palin, and Jeffrey Tambor.

 Iannucci wrote the screenplay with David Schneider and Ian Martin, with additional material by Peter Fellows.

Yann Zenou, Nicolas Duval-Adassovsky, Laurent Zeitoun and Kevin Loader produced the picture.

Adapted from the French graphic novel by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, and based on a true story, The Death of Stalin chronicles the chaotic days before Stalin’s funeral, marked by fierce infighting for the supreme power.
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