Ai Weiwei’s Turandot

Directed by Maxim Derevianko and produced by Christine La Monte alongside Marta Zaccaron and Andy Cohen, Ai Weiwei’s Turandot dives into the artist’s audacious reinterpretation of Puccini’s opera at the Rome Opera House. What begins with Ai’s provocative declaration—“I’m not interested in opera, and I don’t like listening to music”—quickly transforms into an exploration of how one of the world’s most outspoken cultural dissidents uses an unfamiliar medium as a tool for protest and reflection. The result is a fascinating experiment in artistic collision — where an avant-garde activist ventures into one of the most rigid and time-honored artistic realms left to us: Opera. During the film we journey into a conversation between art and history. We follow as Ai reshapes Turandot not as an orientalist fable but as a modern parable of authoritarian control, displacement, and resilience. What really transcends this film though, is the backdrop of real world events, both the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine, have effects, both transformative , and in turn take a deepening resonance when Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv joined the production after its pandemic pause. • What keeps the film grounded is its refusal to glorify. La Monte allows the camera to dwell on moments of tension and exhaustion—the vulnerable, messy process of creating under some extraordinary upheavals to the modern global landscape has on the production and indivivual artists . In doing so, Ai Weiwei’s Turandot embodies Ai’s own credo: “Everything is art. Everything is politics.” It’s not only an fascinating one , , but it’s an essential one—A great real world reminder of the importance of art, asserting that to make art is to engage with freedom itself. Ai Weiwei’s Turandot IS A CURRENT 2026 Oscar Contender on festival and awards circuits; AND Theatrically Released in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland