How award-winning film Leviathan has divided Russia

It was a chilly Thursday afternoon, but Moscow's downtown Rolan cinema was packed with filmgoers.

Many in the eager crowd said they rarely went to the movies these days, but were intrigued by the notion of being among the first in Russia to attend a screening of a Golden Globe winner, Leviathan, which is turning into a political hot potato like nothing else here since the fall of communism.

Set against the backdrop of bleakly scenic northern landscapes and gloomily decayed interiors of a provincial seaport, Leviathan tells the chillingly Job-like story of a common man and his family crushed by a corrupt government.

Vladimir Konnov, a 51-year-old Moscow businessman, said the story reminded him of his own life, having had real estate property unfairly confiscated. "I am afraid that this movie will be seen by only those who already know Russian life is exactly the way it is shown," he says. "But those who vote for the corrupt authorities and support their policies that are ruining the country are the ones who must see this movie by all means as an eye-opener before it is too late."

Leviathan, which casts the government and the Russian Orthodox Church in a questionable light, opened in 650 cinemas across Russia on February 5. Many Russians have already seen it on their computers, because the film was illegally uploaded onto the internet weeks ago.

Unlike with another recent Sony vehicle, The Interview, which raised hackles and perhaps computer hacks by North Korea, the Kremlin has issued no threats over the release of Leviathan. Indeed, the film is partially funded by the government and is the nation's official nominee for the foreign-language Academy Award, which will be handed out tomorrow morning Hong Kong time.

However, that hasn't stopped Russian officials from issuing scathing reviews, with a venom unheard of since the late 1980s perestroika era as the Soviet Union teetered before disbanding. Culture minister Vladimir Medinsky publicly condemned Leviathan for its indictment of the government and the church. "Movies that aim not only to criticise the current authorities but openly spit on them, filled with an air of hopelessness and senselessness of our existence, should not be funded at the expense of the taxpayers," he said in a recent interview with the daily Izvestia. "No matter how much the writers make [the movie characters] drink vodka from the bottle and swear, that doesn't make them real Russians."