France has chosen Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur as its international Oscar entry, according to the French National Centre of Film and Animation (CNC). The plot revolves around a Russian business executive who has to deliver military summons to his 14 workers – and this is where the line between fiction and non-fiction gets disturbingly blurred.
The selection, announced on Wednesday, 16 September, draws on Minotaur’s Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. While remarkable, this film is just France’s submission for consideration, not an actual Oscar pitch. The Academy voters still have to compile a shortlist before proceeding to voting for the final nominees.
Set in Russia, Minotaur follows Gleb, a successful business executive director whose controlled existence begins to collapse. His company has to make staff redundant by sending 14 coworkers to fight on the front.
What Minotaur draws on
On 21 September 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree greenlighting ‘partial’ troop mobilisation of active reservists.
Senior Russian officials have consistently said that the call-up had finished. On 28 October 2022, then defence minister Sergei Shoigu said the target of 300,000 mobilised reservists had been met, with 82,000 deployed and a further 218,000 undergoing training. On 31 October, Putin proclaimed, «It is completed. Full stop.»
Public statements apparently did not repeal the legal framework, because the 2022 presidential decree remains in effect.
Russian companies were already part of the recruitment machinery long before that. Article 9 of Russia’s 1997 mobilisation law requires employers to maintain military records, notify eligible employees and ensure they report for duty when summoned; private ownership does not remove those duties, making Minotaur look disturbingly accurate.
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Why Minotaur represents France
Zvyagintsev co-produced the Minotaur together with CG Cinéma, a production company run by Charles Gillibert and MK Productions.
Cannes listed Minotaur as a French, Latvian and German production. French producers Gillibert and Nathanaël Karmitz backed the project, which also received support from the CNC’s Aide aux cinémas du monde fund.
For Zvyagintsev, the film ends a nine-year gap between features. Now living in France, the Leviathan and Loveless director returns to familiar territory: a private crisis that exposes a wider social one.
French audiences can see Minotaur in cinemas from 14 October. Les Films du Losange is handling the French release, while Mubi will distribute it in the United States.
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