ANDREI ZVYAGINTSEV A man of big ideas

Andrei Zvyagintsev (Russian, 50 years old) is among the most highly regarded Russian filmmakers of his generation. Zvyagintsev's filmography is short but muscular, and routinely compared to work of his late compatriot (and admitted inspiration) Andrei Tarkovsky. Born to working-class parents in Siberia, he began his career as an actor, graduating from drama school in his home town of Novosibirsk before moving to Moscow to further train at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts. Born on 6th February, 1964, he is mostly known for his 2003 film 'The Return', which won him a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. His 2011 film, Elena, premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section, where it won the Jury Prize. His 2014 film Leviathan was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Zvyagintsev won the award for Best Screenplay.
At the age of 20, he graduated from the drama school in Novosibirsk as an actor. Since 1986 he has lived in Moscow where he continued his studies at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts until 1990. From 1992 to 2000 he worked as an actor for film and theater. In 2000 he began to work for the TV station REN TV and directed three episodes of the television series The Black Room. In 2003, he directed his first feature film The Return, which received several awards, including a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. His second feature film The Banishment premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Palme d'Or.
LEVIATHAN
Even though Leviathan's symbol-laden, frequently opaque narrative makes it a challenging film for audiences, it's easy to see why Zvyagintsev's brooding meditation on corruption in a small town near the Barents Sea in northern Russia has been interpreted as a political allegory. The plot of Leviathan revolves around the efforts of the town's thuggish mayor Vadim, played to oily perfection by Roman Madyanov, to seize valuable seaside property owned by Kolia, the film's nominal hero. A desperate man worn down by bureaucratic malfeasance, Kolia enlists the help of his friend Dmitri, a lawyer who does his best to bribe the sleazy mayor. The beleaguered Kolia, who functions as a sort of Russian Everyman, as well as a modern-day Job, must deal with a dalliance between his much younger wife Lilya and Dmitri, Lilya's strained relationship with Roma, his teenaged son from an earlier marriage, as well as the outright hostility of the Russian legal system to his struggle to retain his own property. In several quasi-absurdist sequences, a magistrate reads rulings against Kolia in a rapid-fire monotone that highlights the extent to which the deck is stacked against the hapless protagonist.

FILMOGRAPHY
The Black Room (2000) (TV series)
The Return (2003)
The Banishment (2007)
New York, I Love You ("Apocrypha" segment) (2009)
Elena (2011)
Leviathan (2014)