The 67th Cannes International Film Festival that starts on May 14 announced the nominees for its two most important competitions. The main competition, for the coveted “Palme d'Or”, will feature Andrei Zvyagintsev’s film “Leviathan”. This is the fourth work of the director, who has already triumphed more than once at the Venice and Cannes film festivals.
His debut film “The Return” created a furor, picking up an incredible number of international awards and becoming one of the few Russian pictures to be distributed internationally. Zvyagintsev's second film “The Banishment” received a Cannes award for best actor, while his third, “Elena”, was awarded a special prize in the “Un Certain Regard” category.
The 140-minute drama “Leviathan” is the author's interpretation of the biblical story of Job, set in modern Russia. In the words of Andrei Zvyagintsev, the project was four years in the making. Shooting took place in northern Russia, on the Kola Peninsula in Teriberka. The theme of the movie, as characterized by the director, is human nature, man’s earthly destiny, love and betrayal, lust for power, forgiveness, revenge, and death. The action unfolds against the backdrop of the harsh, but majestic northern nature of the shores of the Barents Sea. The soundtrack was written by Philip Glass, with whom Zvyagintsev has already worked once.
