Andrey Zvyagintsev is a Russian filmmaker with an illustrious biography. His films, covering the harsh Russian reality, have been repeatedly awarded not only national but also international awards.
Biography
Andrey Zvyagintsev was born in 1964 in Novosibirsk. Already in his youth, he dreamed of a creative career and attended classes at the theater studio of Lev Belov, and later continued to receive his education at the theater school. After that, Zvyagintsev for some time began to work as an actor in the Youth Theater, and, having received a summons to the army, was assigned to the Novosibirsk military ensemble.
In 1986, Andrei Zvyagintsev moved to Moscow and successfully enrolled in GITIS, where he already received a higher acting education. However, the artist was initially unlucky with a career: there were no suitable roles. Neither did anyone take seriously his attempts to write scripts. Then Zvyagintsev began to study the history of Soviet and Russian cinema. In the 90s, he also played in the comedy "Shirley-Myrli", the TV series "Queen Margot" and "Kamenskaya".
In the early 2000s, Zvyagintsev collaborated with the Ren TV channel and shot several short videos for it. In 2003, his large-scale directorial debut took place: the film "The Return" was released. Already in it, Zvyagintsev used his signature techniques: unhurried narration, deep characters of characters, breathtaking natural shots and many others. The tape became a worldwide hit and won 28 international awards.
The director consolidated his success in 2007 by releasing the drama "The Banishment", which was awarded the palm branch at the Cannes Film Festival and became the absolute leader at the Moscow Film Festival. In 2011, Andrei Zvyagintsev's next psychological film "Elena" was released. The author was again awarded with prestigious state awards.
In 2014, Zvyagintsev released the sensational film Leviathan, which was nominated for the best foreign film at the Oscar ceremony. The film reflected many negative features, not only of Russian society, but also of the political system, for which the director was initially even denied a film distribution. However, the support and wide publicity of the film did their job: it hit the cinemas and “thundered” in them for several weeks in a row.
Personal life
Andrei Zvyagintsev was married to actress Irina Grineva. The marriage was not going very well, and the couple decided to divorce. Soon the director found happiness with his second wife, who became Anna Matveeva. They had a son, Peter. Currently, complete understanding reigns in the family, and the spouse provides support to the talented filmmaker in work and creativity.
Zvyagintsev is recognized as one of the leading Russian directors of our time. He never stops shooting thoughtful and experimental films. In 2017, Andrey released the film Dislike, which he filled with a lot of hidden references and artistic techniques. The tape was again nominated for an Oscar, but again did not win. However, the film still found its awards at the Cesar and Golden Eagle festivals, as well as the Cannes Film Festival.
