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 The film, a no-holds-barred look at how a corrupt local mayor
crushes all who oppose him to arrive at his goals at all cost,
has even prompted a Russian Orthodox activist to call for it not
be screened in Russia.
A portrait of Putin that is often seen looking down on the mayor
creates what many see as a link with the Kremlin and the Russian
leader's governing style.
Putin critics say the story mirrors life in Russia in the 15
years since the former KGB spy first rose to power, with corrupt
state officials enriching themselves and enjoying impunity.
Russia's Culture Ministry co-financed the film but now says it
blackens Russia's image just to win international acclaim.
"Films focused not only on criticism of current authorities but
openly spitting on them ..., filled with a sense of despair and
hopelessness over our existence, should not be financed with
taxpayers' money," Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky said in a
newspaper interview this week when asked whether the ministry
would support similar films in the future.
Though "Leviathan" premiered in mid-2014, cinemas in Russia will
start screening it only in February, with foul language muted to
comply with Russian profanity laws.
The film, largely shot in the village of Teriberka on the
Barents Sea in Russia's far north, has already won a dozen
awards abroad, including a Golden Globe.
On Thursday, it captured an Academy Award nomination in the
Foreign Language Film category along with four others.
MINISTER UPSET
The authors say their film was partly inspired by a story from
the United States. Many in the director's home country, however,
see it as aimed directly at Putin's Russia, though Zvyagintsev
himself has sought to steer away from such links.
"It did not matter in what setting the events of this drama
unfolded. The story of conflict between the individual and the
authorities is universal," Zvyagintsev's website says.
The director himself was not immediately available to comment.
Medinsky began complaining about the film last year when
"Leviathan" received favorable reviews at the Cannes film
festival, one of cinema's most prestigious events. He said he
did not like the film's excessive profanity.
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In an interview published on Thursday he complained to Izvestia
newspaper, which is sympathetic to the Kremlin, that "Leviathan" had
no positive characters. He said the story was not specific to Russia
and could have been played out anywhere.
"I hope in the future Andrei Zvyagintsev, a very gifted man, will
make a film with the assistance of the Culture Ministry that will
not feature this existential hopelessness," he said.
"A film that will make one want to get up, get out on the street and
do something good, right, without delays - right here and right now.
You don't get that after 'Leviathan'."
Izvestia also quoted a Russian Orthodox activist calling for the
film, which shows dubious cooperation between the mayor and local
clergy, not to be shown in Russia because it vilifies the Russian
Orthodox Church.
Putin, whose popularity soared over the annexation of Crimea in 2014
but could be threatened by an economic crisis, has not commented
publicly on the controversy and few Russians have yet seen the film.
The success of "Leviathan" abroad gets limited coverage in
mainstream Russian media, most of which are loyal to the Kremlin.
Zvyaginstev told the independent broadcaster Dozhd he was bewildered
by the treatment he and his film were getting from state TV and that
he felt himself being "isolated".
He said no officials congratulated him on the Golden Globe award for
Best Foreign Language Film, the first such award for Russia after
the 1969 triumph of "War and Peace" produced in the Soviet Union.
The last time a Russian film won an Oscar was in 1994 with "Burnt by
the sun", an intimate study of a family destroyed by Stalinist
purges in the 1930s by director Nikita Mikhalkov, now an outspoken
supporter of Putin.
Winners of the 87th Academy Awards will be revealed in Los Angeles
on Feb. 22.
(Editing by Timothy Heritage and Peter Millership)
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