This year’s Grand Prix prize at the Cannes Film Festival is the political drama Minotaur. Set against the backdrop of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s latest looks to join previous features Leviathan (2014) and Loveless (2017) as an International Feature Film nominee at the Oscars. The cast includes Iris Lebedeva, Dmitriy Mazurov, Varvara Shmykova, and Juris Zagars.

The reviews are impressive with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 90 on Metacritic. Essentially marking second place at the French festival, two of the last three Grand Prix victors have scored Best Picture nominations (The Zone of Interest and Sentimental Value). Minotaur is a co-production between France, Latvia, and Germany and any of them could submit it for IFF. The filmmaker’s previously nominated pics were Russian submissions and that won’t be the case this time around. With Mubi handling distribution, I would expect a spirited campaign with a solid likelihood of inclusion in the final quintet for foreign feature. Best Picture is possible, but perhaps more of a reach unless this starts to be seen as a frontrunner to win the international race. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…