Andrey Zvyagintsev returns to cinema for the first time in nearly a decade with Minotaur, a 142-minute Russian-language political thriller set in a provincial town during the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war. The film opens in US cinemas on November 20 through MUBI. Deadline published an exclusive clip Wednesday ahead of the theatrical run.
The film premiered May 19 at the 79th Cannes Film Festival in main competition, winning the Grand Prix and the Cannes Soundtrack Award. France subsequently selected it as the country's official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards, with the ceremony set for March 14, 2027. It currently holds a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 53 reviews and a Metacritic score of 91. Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian called it "tremendous."
Co-written by Zvyagintsev and Simon Liashenko, the film is loosely based on Claude Chabrol's 1969 drama The Unfaithful Wife. Dmitriy Mazurov leads the cast as Gleb, a business executive navigating a layoff crisis and his wife's affair against the backdrop of the invasion. Mikhail Krichman shot the film in Riga. The score is by Evgueni and Sacha Galperine.
Zvyagintsev, who relocated from Moscow to Paris in 2022 following a long battle with COVID-19, used the stage at Cannes to call on President Putin to end the war. Russia's Justice Ministry responded in September by adding him to its foreign agents register, citing work with "foreign agents" and the spread of "false information" about Russian government policy. His previous films Leviathan (2014) and Loveless (2017) were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The Gotham Awards nominated Minotaur in three categories: Best International Feature, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Results are still pending.
