Acclaimed Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, who nearly died during the Covid pandemic, made a triumphant return to screens on Tuesday with a tense family drama set amid the “disaster” of the war in Ukraine. “Minotaur” by the Oscar-nominated filmmaker, making his first movie in nine years and his first in exile, focuses on a wealthy Russian couple struggling with a floundering marriage as the country goes to war with Ukraine.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “As it is, this film won’t receive a distribution certificate (in Russia). But “the piracy industry is strong, so everyone who wants to see it will definitely see it,” Zvyagintsev told AFP at the Cannes Film Festival, where the film was given a rapturous reception. Shot in Latvia, it features the corruption, moral failures and hard drinking that helped make his 2014 hit “Leviathan” a searing portrait of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The war serves as the ominous background to the drama, with men being drafted for the front, tanks rumbling by on trainlines, while anti- and pro- war symbols can be found on the cars and walls of the surrounding town. Asked how the film might be viewed by Russians who watch pirated copies or use VPNs to get around internet censorship rules, he said he expected many to understand his views. “Those who agree that it’s time to put an end to this hell, and that it’s a nightmare and a disaster for Russia, those people will understand this film clearly, in solidarity with the makers of the film, and there will be a great many of them, I’m sure of that,” he said.