LEVIATHAN World Cinema

Premiering in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, LEVIATHAN is the latest work and magnum opus from Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev (ELENA, THE RETURN). Zvyagintsev tells the story of aging father Kolya, who runs an auto repair shop in a small coastal town. When Kolya becomes embroiled in a property feud with the local mayor, he must battle city hall and wrestle with a crisis that erupts closer to home, involving his second wife and their son. The resulting satire is finely wrought in lines that delineate class, religion, societal roles, personal identity, gender, family and the Russian state. Described by Zvyagintsev as a loose retelling of the Book of Job, LEVIATHAN captures how society bears down on the individual, and bends the curve of life into an inevitable, even devastating trajectory.