Film director Andrei Zvyagintsev declared a “foreign agent” in Russia

Film director Andrei Zvyagintsev has been declared a “foreign agent” in Russia. At a ceremony in Cannes, he demanded that Putin stop the war

Author, News Department

Place of work, BBC Russian Service

Published 2 minutes ago

Reading time: 4 min

One of the most famous Russian film directors, Andrei Zvyagintsev, has been declared a “foreign agent” in Russia. He publicly condemned the attack on Ukraine and lives outside of Russia.

62-year-old director and screenwriter Andrei Zvyagintsev is a laureate of the Cannes and Venice film festivals and winner of many other Russian and foreign prizes.

Zvyagintsev left Russia for treatment in Germany even before the big war, in 2021, and then, after it began, he publicly condemned the Russian authorities and decided not to return.

In 2022, he moved to France, where he now lives.

This May, his film Minotaur, a family drama set against the backdrop of the Russian-Ukrainian war, won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

In his speech during the award ceremony, Zvyagintsev addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin directly in Russian.

“Millions of people on both sides of the contact line now dream of only one thing - for the countless killings of people to finally stop, and the only person who can stop this meat grinder is you, Mr. President of the Russian Federation. End this carnage already. The whole world is waiting for this,” said the director, speaking about the war in Ukraine.

The Russian Ministry of Justice usually very briefly explains the grounds for assigning the status of “foreign agent”. One of them is often said to be that a person “opposes a special military operation,” but in the case of Zvyagintsev this is not mentioned in the department’s press release.

It is indicated that Zvyagintsev “took part in the creation […] of messages and materials” of persons who were declared “foreign agents” in Russia, as well as organizations declared “undesirable” there.

“He disseminated false information about the decisions taken by public authorities of the Russian Federation and the policies pursued by them. Interacted with foreign agents,” the ministry said in a statement.

Along with Zvyagintsev, journalist Mikhail Shevelev, bloggers Erzhan Turgumbay and Pavel Ivanov, as well as the Anarchist-35 project were declared “foreign agents”.

Zvyagintsev is the author of the films “Return”, “Leviathan”, “Loveless”, “Elena”, “Minotaur”.

This week, Zvyagintsev’s film “Minotaur” was nominated for an Oscar in the category “Best Foreign Language Film” from France. The French National Center for Cinema and Animation (CNC) announced this on its website.

Burden of a “foreign agent”