Minotaur electrifies Cannes screening May 19

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Minotaur” arrived at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19 as one of the competition slate’s most overtly political premieres, with Variety reporting that the film received an eight-minute standing ovation after its screening. Festival de Cannes lists “Minotaur” in the 2026 Official Selection’s main competition, confirming it is one of the titles competing for the Palme d’Or at the 79th edition of the festival. Reuters photographs from Cannes on May 19 showed Zvyagintsev leaving the screening with cast members Iris Lebedeva and Dmitriy Mazurov. The film matters in part because it marks Zvyagintsev’s return to Cannes with a story set in Russia in 2022, centered on a businessman named Gleb whose family and professional life begin to collapse. (variety.com) Festival materials describe the setting as a provincial Russian city in an increasingly unstable world. ### Who made “Minotaur,” and why is this premiere getting attention? (festival-cannes.com) Andrey Zvyagintsev directed “Minotaur,” his first feature in nearly a decade, according to Deadline and Meduza. Zvyagintsev is the Russian filmmaker behind earlier Cannes titles including “Loveless,” and the new film is his first feature made entirely outside Russia, according to The Hollywood Reporter. (festival-cannes.com) Variety described the picture as a “scathing look at corruption and infidelity in Putin’s Russia,” while Deadline called it a return from “the best part of a decade.” Those descriptions helped frame the premiere as one of Cannes’ more forceful political debuts this year. (deadline.com) ### What is the film actually about? Festival de Cannes says the story follows Gleb, a prosperous business owner living with his wife Galina and their son in a provincial city in Russia in 2022. The official synopsis says he faces mounting business problems as “a world” around him grows more unstable and that the collapse of his carefully built life turns violent. (variety.com) Deadline reported that the film is based on Claude Chabrol’s 1969 French film “The Unfaithful Wife.” The Hollywood Reporter described it as a loose remake that also functions as an indictment of corruption and, in its reading, of Russia’s war against Ukraine. That latter interpretation is The Hollywood Reporter’s assessment, not language used in the Cannes synopsis. (festival-cannes.com) ### Which cast and production details are confirmed? Festival materials and Unifrance identify Dmitriy Mazurov, Irina or Iris Lebedeva, Yuriy Zavalnyouk and Boris Kudrin among the cast, with the production set up as a France-Latvia-Germany co-production in the Russian language. Unifrance lists a French release date of Oct. 14, 2026. Variety’s Cannes report used the English title “Minotaur,” while the festival page also uses the French title “Minotaure.” Reuters’ image caption from the May 19 screening used “Minotaure (Minotaur).” (deadline.com) ### How strong was the reaction in the room? Variety reported an eight-minute standing ovation after the May 19 screening. (en.unifrance.org) Deadline, in a separate report on the same premiere, said the applause lasted 10 minutes. The difference appears to reflect varying outlet estimates of the same Cannes-room reaction. (variety.com) Meduza, citing Russian reporting from the festival, also said the audience gave the film an eight-minute standing ovation and reported that Zvyagintsev addressed the crowd afterward. ### What happens next after Cannes? Cannes will continue screening competition titles through the remainder of the festival before the Palme d’Or is awarded, and “Minotaur” remains in that lineup. (variety.com) In France, Unifrance lists the next concrete milestone for the film as its Oct. 14, 2026 theatrical release through Les Films du Losange. (festival-cannes.com) (meduza.io)