He had a couple of projects in the works (English language project What Happens and a “psychological mood” of Russia’s society) and then had crazy health scare, so we’re pleased that Variety reports that Andrey Zvyagintsev is prepping his sixth feature which will shoot in Spain and France a bit past the first quarter of next year. Coined as a politically-minded film, Jupiter will tell the story of a Russian oligarch’s reckoning with the harsh reality of his family’s future. The producers say this is an “unrelenting exploration of power and corruption” and the filmmaker mentions that this “goes beyond today’s political context” and this is about “the nature of absolute power is a universal theme, and through this prism we can look at any cultural landscape or historical era.”
Zvyagintsev re-teams with Cinematographer Mikhail Krichman and Production Designer Andrey Ponkratov and the film packs quite a producing team in Anonymous Content’s David Levine and Chadwick Prichard, Lorem Ipsum’s Yan Vizinberg, Abigail Honor and Chris Cooper and Les Films du Losange’s Charles Gillibert. Alexis Dantec, Elastica Films’ María Zamora and Enrique Costa will co-produce, while Hype Studios’ Ilya Stewart and Pavel Burya will executive produce. If all pans out right, Jupiter could be readied for a Venice Film Festival showing, but it’s more likely that we are looking at a return to Cannes in 2025.
The Russian filmmaker (now Paris-based) will likely never return to his homeland which was the backdrop for his award-winning films so far. The Return won the Golden Lion in 1999, and his The Banishment (2007), baffling Un Certain Regard selected over Competition film Elena (2011), Leviathan (2014) and Loveless (2017) have all won accolades – here is the filmmaker winning the Jury Prize for his last work.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
