All cinemas in the Murmansk region have been advised not to show Andrey Zvyagintsev’s film “Leviathan” because of its negative presentation of people in the north, FlashNord reports.
The film, which is shot in the village of Teriberka on the coast of the Barents Sea, recently won the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, as BarentsObserver reported. It is also nominated to the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards.
A source in the regional government says to FlashNord that Governor Marina Kovtun is dissatisfied with how people living in the north are presented in the movie, and that she wants the movie banned from being shown. The governor herself denies the accusations, stating “I ask all those writing about a ban on showing the film “Leviathan” to calm down. There can be no such ban. We do live in the time of the Internet”, she writes on her Twitter account.
According to FlashNord, several cinemas in Murmansk confirm having received recommendations not to show the acclaimed movie.
