ASTRA: France submits Russian drama about wartime mobilisation for Oscars

France has submitted Russian-language drama Minotaur, directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev, for the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars, according to ASTRA.

The film follows a company director whose wife is having an affair. He is summoned to a regional administration and ordered, as part of a “partial mobilisation”, to send 14 employees to war.

Unwilling to lose valuable workers, the businessman hires new employees on double pay without telling them that, instead of starting new jobs, they will be sent to the front.

Critics have described Minotaur as “an intimate drama woven into the context of contemporary Russia”.

The film is an international co-production between France, Latvia and Germany and marks Zvyagintsev’s first film in nine years.

Zvyagintsev moved to France during that period, where he underwent rehabilitation following the effects of coronavirus. He decided not to return to Russia after the full-scale war in Ukraine began.

Earlier in 2026, Minotaur won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. During the awards ceremony, Zvyagintsev appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to “stop the meat grinder” so that “the countless killings of people would finally end”.

In an interview with ASTRA, the director said he hoped people in Russia could “wake up” and realise what was happening.

By Aghakazim Guliyev