The Cinematheque

“Beautifully structured and emotionally wrenching … The Return immediately establishes Zvyagintsev as a master.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Winner of both the Golden Lion and Best First Film prize at Venice, the triumphant debut feature of Andrey Zvyagintsev ​“renews the grand tradition of Russian cinematic mysticism epitomized by Andrei Tarkovsky” (David Kehr, New York Times). Andrey and Vanya are two young boys being raised by their mother in a derelict backwater; their father disappeared a dozen years before. One day, the brothers return home to discover that their father, a stern, remote, uncommunicative man, has unexpectedly returned. He offers not a word of explanation for his absence, and makes plans to takes his bewildered sons on a fishing trip. The ensuing journey, a masculine rite-of-passage across vast, rugged, mystical landscapes, becomes a Biblical battle of wills. The Return impresses as a psychologically acute, emotionally compelling family drama—and haunts as a mythic, metaphysical thriller. Tragically, young Vladimir Garin, who plays Andrey, drowned in a swimming accident shortly after the film was completed.