Minotaur

In an anonymous provincial town in contemporary Russia, entrepreneur Gleb feels the ground slipping from beneath his feet. The city administration issues a ruthless order requiring him to designate fourteen of his own employees for military service—a bitter echo of the Greek myth in which fourteen youths were sacrificed to the Minotaur. The moral weight of this decision already burdens his conscience when he makes a devastating discovery: his wife is having an affair with a photographer. What begins as a personal conflict evolves into a chilling dissection of power, adultery, and alienation. The compelling Minotaur thus lays bare the underlying tensions of a society at war, the effects of which inexorably seep into everyday life.

Minotaur premiered this spring in the official competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or and won both the Grand Prix and the Cannes Soundtrack Award. This reimagining of Claude Chabrol’s La Femme infidèle (1969) is also France’s Oscar entry for the coming year. The screening at the Noordelijk Film Festival marks its Frisian premiere.