Russia Labels Director Zvyagintsev  “Foreign Agent”

Russia designated acclaimed film director Andrey Zvyagintsev a “foreign agent” on Friday, according to state news agency TASS.

Russia applies the designation, which carries connotations of espionage, to people it deems to be engaging in anti-Russian activity with support from abroad. Zvyagintsev has repeatedly criticized Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

His latest film, Minotaur, won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival this year. It depicts a Russian businessman forced to decide which of his employees should be mobilized to fight in Ukraine.

“Millions of people on both sides of the front line dream of only one thing: for the massacres to stop”, Zvyagintsev said in his acceptance speech, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the only person capable of ending the war.

Critics have described Minotaur as one of Zvyagintsev’s most openly critical commentaries on Russia’s political and moral condition.

Zvyagintsev, who has lived outside Russia since the COVID pandemic, is also known for films including The Return, The Banishment and Leviathan. As a designated foreign agent, he will face onerous bureaucratic requirements and restrictions on his income in Russia, while everything he publishes, including on social media, must carry a capital-letter warning identifying it as content produced by a foreign agent.

(Reuters, max)