Len Blavatnik Produces Zeldovich's 'Medea'

Alexander Zeldovich’s new film adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy, Medea, obtained its last remaining financial support from Len Blavatnik.

Blavatnik came on board with the gap financing needed to make the final edits and received an executive producer credit. He joins two other billionaires, Roman Abramovich and Sergey Adonyev, in backing the ambitious retelling of the ill-fated mythological figure.  

“Russian arthouse cinema is alive very much thanks to the private investors and private sponsorship,” Zeldovich says in Screen Daily of Blavatnik and his fellow producers. 

Medea, played by Tinatin Dalakishvili, is reimagined as a modern-day woman in contemporary Russia and Israel. The film was invited to the Locarno Film Festival in August 2021 and has just finished showing at Filmfest Hamburg. It will be screened at other festivals and make its Russian theatrical release in late October.