Kantemir Balagov

Kantemir was born in Nalchik Russia in a family unrelated to cinematography Since childhood Kantemir 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 didnt originally plan to pursue a career of a filmmaker but decided to apply for the cinema workshop led by Alexander Sokurov at the KabardinoBalkarian University During his studies he made several fiction and documentary films Some of Balagovs short films were shown at the 67th Locarno Film 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 2019 Balagov received the Cannes Best Director Award and FIPRESCI prize for the film Beanpole which was presented in the program Un Certain Regard