Minotaur

From master director Andrey Zvyagintsev (‘Leviathan’, ‘Elena’, ‘Loveless’), the powerful new drama MINOTAUR traces the emotional and moral collapse of a Russian businessman under the strain of personal and political upheaval.

Provincial Russia, 2022. In the immediate aftermath of his nation’s invasion of Ukraine, wealthy company CEO Gleb (Dmitriy Mazurov) is compelled to support the war machine, tasked with “volunteering” men from his own workforce for conscription. As the demands of the state close in, so too does his private life begin to fracture. His growing suspicion that his wife Galina (Iris Lebedeva) is having an affair with a young artist is soon confirmed, sending his carefully constructed world into a rapid descent.

Marking his first feature in close to a decade, the now-exiled Zvyagintsev reunites with longtime collaborators cinematographer Mikhail Krichman and production designer Andrey Ponkratov, on a work that stands as a potent continuation of his incisive exploration of power. Both a merciless thriller for our present times and a formidable artistic achievement, MINOTAUR emerges as a pièce de résistance in more ways than one.