Kantemir Balagov

Balagov was born in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, RSFSR, in the final year of the Soviet Union, into a family with no connection to cinema.^[1][2] His mother is a chemistry and biology teacher who works as the head teacher at a local school, while his father is a local entrepreneur.^[3]

Since childhood, Balagov had been watching 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 did not 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 he still wrote to Sokurov asking Sokurov to consider his application. He eventually was accepted to the workshop as a third-year student. He graduated from university after studies in Sokurov's workshop. Directors Kira Kovalenko, Alexander Zolotukhin and Vladimir Bitokov were his fellow students.^[4][5][6]

During his studies, he made several fiction and documentary films.^[7] Some of Balagov's short films were shown at the 67th Locarno Festival.^[8] 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.^[9][10][11] In 2017, he was awarded the GQ Russia Prize in the category Discovery of the Year.^[12]

In 2019, Balagov received the Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard Award for Best Director and FIPRESCI prize for the film Beanpole.^[13][14] Beanpole was Russia's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, making the December shortlist.^[15]

In January 2021, Balagov was named as the director of the pilot for The Last of Us television adaptation.^[16] In October 2022, Balagov announced that he left the project a year ago over creative differences, and the series' showrunner and creator, Craig Mazin, took over directing duties for the pilot, although 40% of the footage shot by Balagov were retained in the final cut.

In 2022, he served as Telluride Film Festival guest director alongside Kira Kovalenko, at the 49th edition.^[17][18]

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Balagov condemned the war and left Russia for exile in California.^[19][20] Balagov and his girlfriend, the Russian filmmaker Kira Kovalenko^[17] were chosen as Telluride Film Festival guest directors in September 2022.^[18]

In May 2024, it was announced that Balagov would film his first English-language feature titled Butterfly Jam. The movie is produced by Pascal Caucheteux's Why Not Productions and Alexander Rodnyansky's AR Content.^[21] Filming began on 2 April 2025.^[22] The film had its world premiere as the opening film of the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival on 13 May.

Balagov is in a relationship with Russian filmmaker Kira Kovalenko.^[18]