The Idiots(s)

Aimee Lou Wood

Anna Dostoevskaya

BAFTA Award-winning actor Aimee Lou Wood became internationally known for her performance as Aimee Gibbs in Netflix’s Sex Education. Her screen work includes Living, Toxic Town, Daddy Issues and the third season of HBO’s The White Lotus. She also co-created, co-wrote and starred in the BBC romantic comedy-drama Film Club.

In The Idiot(s), Wood plays Anna Dostoevskaya: Fyodor’s wife, stenographer, manager and eventual publisher, whose resolve becomes essential to their survival.

Johnny Flynn

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Johnny Flynn is an acclaimed British actor, musician and composer. His screen credits include Ripley, One Life, Emma, The Dig, Beast and Stardust, in which he portrayed David Bowie. Alongside his acting career, Flynn has released several albums and composed music for theatre, film and television.

He plays Fyodor Dostoevsky during the turbulent period in which gambling, debt, marriage and artistic obsession converged around the creation of The Idiot.

Vicky Krieps

Natasha Friedrichs

Vicky Krieps is an internationally acclaimed Luxembourgish actor whose films include Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island, Viggo Mortensen’s The Dead Don’t Hurt and Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage. Her performance in Corsage received the Un Certain Regard Best Performance award at the Cannes Film Festival and the European Film Award for Best Actress.

Christian Friedel

Ivan Turgenev

Christian Friedel is a German actor, singer and theatre artist. His screen work includes Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 13 Minutes, the television series Babylon Berlin and HBO’s The White Lotus. He received international recognition for his performance as Rudolf Höss in Jonathan Glazer’s Academy Award-winning The Zone of Interest.

Małgorzata Szumowska

Director and co-writer

Małgorzata Szumowska is an award-winning Polish filmmaker whose work combines psychological intimacy, dark humour and striking visual authorship. Her films include In the Name Of, Body, Mug, The Other Lamb, Never Gonna Snow Again and Woman Of….

Szumowska won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival for Body and the festival’s Grand Jury Prize for Mug. In the Name Of received the Berlinale Teddy Award, while Never Gonna Snow Again, co-directed with Michał Englert, premiered in competition at Venice and was selected as Poland’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

Michał Englert

Director, co-writer and director of photography

Michał Englert is a Polish director, cinematographer, screenwriter and producer. A longstanding creative collaborator of Małgorzata Szumowska, he has shaped the visual language of films including In the Name Of, Body, Mug and The Other Lamb.

Englert co-wrote and co-directed Never Gonna Snow Again and Woman Of… with Szumowska. His cinematography credits also include Ari Folman’s The Congress, Marie Noëlle’s Marie Curie and Jacek Borcuch’s Lasting, for which he received the World Cinema Cinematography Award at Sundance.

Kasper Bajon

Co-writer

Kasper Bajon is a Polish screenwriter, filmmaker, novelist and poet. His television credits include The Mire, High Water, Open Your Eyes, Project UFO and Heweliusz. His literary work includes Fuerte, a finalist for Poland’s Nike Literary Award.

Bríd Arnstein

Co-writer

Bríd Arnstein is a BAFTA-nominated British screenwriter working across film and television. A graduate of the National Film and Television School, she has developed projects with companies including DNA Films, FX, Element Pictures, House Productions and FilmNation. Her short animation The Song of a Lost Boy was nominated for a BAFTA.

Andrew D. Kaufman

Author of the source book

Andrew D. Kaufman is an author, educator and scholar of Russian literature. The Idiot(s) is inspired by his book The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky, which brings Anna Dostoevskaya’s remarkable life and contribution out of the shadow of her celebrated husband.