Kantemir Balagov
Kantemir Arturovich Balagov (; born 28 July 1991) is a Russian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer of Circassian origin. He has directed the films "Closeness" (2017) and "Beanpole" (2019). Biography. Balagov was born in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, RSFSR, in the final year of the Soviet Union, in a family unrelated to cinema. His mother is a teacher of chemistry and biology, she works as a head teacher at a local school, while his father is a local entrepreneur. Since childhood, Balagov watched a lot of mainstream movies, and at the age of 18 began to  create his own small videos. Then, together with friends in Nalchik, he shot an Internet series with episodes of 10 minutes each. He didn't originally plan to pursue a career as a filmmaker, but decided to apply for the cinema workshop, led by Alexander Sokurov at Kabardino-Balkarian State University in Nalchik. Balagov missed the deadline to enter the university as a freshman, but still wrote to Sokurov, asking to consider his application. He eventually got accepted to the workshop as a third-year student. As a result, he graduated from university on the course of the creative workshop  of Alexander Sokurov. Directors Kira Kovalenko and Vladimir Bitokov were his fellow students. During his studies, he made several fiction and documentary films. Some of Balagov's short films were shown at the 67th Locarno Festival. In 2017, he made his debut as a director with the feature film "Closeness" in the program Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, where he received the prize FIPRESCI. In 2017, he was awarded the "GQ" Russia Prize in the category Discovery of the Year. In 2019, Balagov received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director and FIPRESCI prize for the  film "Beanpole", which was presented in the program Un Certain Regard. "Beanpole" was Russia's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, making the December shortlist. In January 2021, it was revealed that Balagov will direct the first episode for "The Last of Us" television adaptation. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Balagov condemned the war and left Russia.