The year is 2022 and Gleb, a powerful CEO at a Russian transport company, is contending with the fallout of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Amid conflicting political and corporate pressures, as well as the grim consequences of the draft, he tries to insulate his home life from the consequences of the war. But when he discovers that his wife Galina has been having an affair, the tenuous order of his life starts to implode.
Winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes, Minotaur is the explosive latest feature from Russian master Andrey Zvyagintsev. A bold transposition of Claude Chabrol’s 1969 The Unfaithful Wife to contemporary Russia, Zvyagintsev’s film manages to imbue an icy domestic thriller with political urgency and a downright mythic heft. Shot by necessity in Latvia, outside the director’s native country, this is a searing indictment of political violence and corruption, and a bracing reminder of the monsters we keep at home.
Grand Prix, Cannes 2026
Supported by
Dmitriy Mazurov, Iris Lebedeva, Boris Kudrin, Yuriy Zavalnyouk, Varvara Zmykova
France/Germany/Latvia
2026
In Russian with English subtitles
At Lindsay Family Stage at Granville Island & Vancouver Playhouse
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Credits & Director
Producer
Charles Gillibert, Nathanaël Karmitz, Elisha Karmitz, Marco Perego, Andrey Zvyagintsev
Screenwriter
Simon Lyashenko, Andrey Zvyagintsev
Cinematography
Mikhail Krichman
Editor
Andrey Zvyagintsev
Original Music
Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine
Andrey Zvyagintsev
Born in Novosibirsk in 1964, Andrey Zvyagintsev began his career as an actor and television director before creating his first feature, The Return (2003), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Zvyagintsev’s film The Banishment (2007) was the first Russian film to win Best Actor at Cannes; Leviathan (2014) won Cannes’ Best Screenplay, the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and was nominated for an Academy Award; and Loveless (2017) won the Cannes Jury Prize and earned Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and César nominations. His latest film, Minotaur, was the winner of the 2026 Cannes Grand Prix.
Filmography: The Return (2003); Elena (2011); Leviathan (2014); Loveless (2017)
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