Andrey Zvyagintsev Retrospective: Elena + Q&A with Andrey Zvyagintsev

The screening is followed by a Q&A with Andrey Zvyagintsev, hosted by Tim Robey, film critic at The Telegraph.

Perhaps Zvyagintsev’s most intimate film, Elena tells the tale of an eponymous former nurse from a poor background who appears to have struck lucky when a wealthy patient marries her.

Their blissful union is only hampered by each spouse’s strong dislike of the other’s grownup child from a previous marriage. And when the subject of inheritance comes up, Elena—who straddles the moneyed world of her husband and the broken-down, gritty reality of her unemployed son—must hatch a desperate plan. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

In collaboration with Cygnnet Publishing.

Elena, dir Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia 2011, 109 mins