Leviathan

Overview

Since screening at New Zealand International Film Festival in 2014, Leviathan has gone on to pick up accolades across the globe. It picked up Best Screenplay at Cannes and Best Foreign Film at the 2015 Golden Globes as well as a nomination in the category at this year’s Academy Awards. The Russian drama will make its return to cinemas from April 23.

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, Leviathan follows the life of out-of-work simpleton/fisherman/mechanic Kolya, his wife Lilya and their teenage son Romka. The family is haunted by a corrupted mayor, who is trying to seize possession of their ancestral land and a small auto repair shop. In order to save their home Kolya calls on his old Army friend, who also happens to be a lawyer. Together they fight back against the mayor through blackmail, which unravels extraordinary consequences.

The screenplay is loosely adapted from the biblical stories of Job from Uz and King Ahab of Samaria and Heinrich von Kleist's novella Michael Kohlhaas, a 1810 work about a fanatical quest for justice.

Producer Alexander Rodnyansky says the film, "deals with some of the most important social issues of contemporary Russia while never becoming an artist's sermon or a public statement; it is a story of love and tragedy experienced by ordinary people"