Zvyagintsev was born in Novosibirsk, Siberia. At the age of 20 in 1984, he graduated from the theater school in Novosibirsk as an actor. Since 1986, he has lived in Moscow where he continued his studies at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts until 1990. From 1992 to 2000, he worked as an actor for film and theater. In 2000, he began to work for the TV station REN TV and directed three episodes of the television series The Black Room.
His most recent film, Loveless (2017), won the Jury Prize at Cannes in May 2017.[7] It later won the Best Film at the 2017 London Film Festival, making him the second director to have won the award twice, having previously been honored for Leviathan.[8] In November 2017, the film won three awards at the Golden Unicorn Awards in London: Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actress.[9]Loveless was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Zvyagintsev won the Achievement in Directing award at the 11th Asia Pacific Screen Awards for Loveless. In March 2018, Loveless won the César Award for Best Foreign Film, making Zvyagintsev the first Russian director to have won this award. In 2018, Zvyagintsev was a jury member of the Cannes Film Festival.
In 2023 it was announced that he is working on his next project titled Jupiter, about an oligarch, and is planning on shooting in spring 2024 in Europe.[10]
Personal life
Andrei Zvyantsev's first wife was actress Irina Grinyova. They lived together for 6 years, afterwards they divorced.
His second wife is Anna Matveeva, film editor.[11][12] They have a son, Pyotr (born 2009).[13][14]
Illness
On 25 June 2021 Zvyagintsev received the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine. On the 3rd day after vaccination, he had a fever of 38-39 °C and was taken to hospital. On 8 July he was admitted to intensive care. During his treatment in the hospital, he contracted sepsis as a result of contracting a nosocomial infection resistant to antibiotics.[15][16][17] He subsequently developed polyneuropathy after he was put into an artificial coma in Germany, the result of which causing him to lose the ability to walk. For a long time he could neither sit nor speak, and there were problems with the movement of his hands. In the hospital, his throat ligaments were injured. As late as May 2022, he was still undergoing treatment at a hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany.[15][16][17]
In Russian dark comedy series The Last MinisterAlexander Gorchilin plays an alternate reality version of Zvyagintsev[18] who's kidnapped by a secret government agency and forced to make a sequel to Leviathan as part of a psyop to bolster Russia's reputation as world's bleakest and scariest country.
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