Andrey Zvyagintsev

Julian Graffy writes that Andrey Zvyagintsev was almost completely unknown even in his own country when he arrived at Venice. He was thirty-nine, and the first feature he had in hand he had been able to make only because of three half-hour films he shot for a television series, the series' producer having talked him into it. A week later The Return took not only the prize for best debut feature but the Golden Lion itself. Graffy measures that with a comparison: the first feature of his great compatriot and namesake Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan's Childhood, had shared the Golden Lion, so the achievement was eclipsed. Despite a Russian tendency to look askance at artists whose fame is won abroad, The Return went on to take both of the major Russian prizes. The Banishment, on Graffy's account, confirms his place at the front of the new Russian cinema.