Andrey Zvyagintsev

Born in 1964, Andrey Zvyagintsev attended the Novosibirsk State Theatre Insitute and graduated from the acting faculty of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts in Moscow. In the following years, Zvyagintsev made several stage, film, and television appearances as an actor. In 2003, he made his directorial debut with The Return, which won the Golden Lion and the Lion of the Future at the Venice International Film Festival. His second film, The Banishment (2007), competed for the Palme d’Or at the Festival de Cannes, where actor Konstantin Lavronenko was named Best Actor, a first for a Russian artist. In 2011, Zvyagintsev’s Elena won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. Leviathan (2014), which Zvyagintsev co-wrote with Oleg Negin, screened in competition in Cannes, where it won the Best Screenplay Award; the film went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Film – the first Russian feature to win that prize since 1969. Loveless (2017) won the Jury Prize in Cannes and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. It also received the César Award for  Best Foreign Film, a first for Russian cinema. In 2018, he returned to Cannes, serving as a juror. Zvyagintsev is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the European Film Academy.