Roman Olegovich Volobuev is a Russian film and television director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic, born on July 31, 1977, in Moscow.
With a background in investigative reporting, Volobuev began his career in the film industry as a film reviewer, writing for various publications including Afisha magazine, Première, Izvestia, Vedomosti, and Iskusstvo Kino.
In 2004, he became the film section editor at Afisha, a position he held for eight years. During this time, he also served as the founding editor-in-chief of the short-lived Russian edition of Empire film magazine in 2007 and as deputy editor of GQ Russia in 2012.
In 2013, Volobuev co-developed a political comedy series called Zavtra (Tomorrow) with co-writer Lena Vanina, which was unfortunately never produced due to financial and political issues with the independent cable news station TV Rain.
Volobuev's debut feature film, The Cold Front (2016),a chamber mystery drama, received mostly lukewarm reviews and failed to perform well at the Russian box-office. His second film, the satirical action comedy Blokbaster (2017),received critical acclaim and won the Special Jury Prize at the Kinotavr film festival, but Volobuev later disowned the film due to creative differences with the producers.
However, Volobuev's subsequent projects, including the black political comedy TV series The Last Minister and the 4-part mini-series Just Imagine Things We Know, both released in 2020, found mainstream success.
Volobuev has also co-written a post-apocalyptic drama series, Survivors (2021),and has appeared as an actor in several films, including Brief Guide To A Happy Life (2011),Hot and Bothered (2015),and A Good Man (2020).
As a vocal critic of the Russian authorities, Volobuev has been detained during street protests in Moscow and has publicly spoken out against the government, calling modern Russia an "authoritarian state with good Wi-Fi and a nice urban planning".
In 2018, after the arrest of fellow director Kirill Serebrennikov, Volobuev urged Russian filmmakers to stop applying for funding from the Ministry of Culture. In 2022, he condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequently left Russia, publishing a manifesto on Meduza in which he compared the moral choices faced by Russian filmmakers to those faced by German filmmakers under Hitler.
