Born on 12 July 1949 in
Moscow, Lungin is the son of the scriptwriter and linguist
Lilianna Lungina. He later attended
Moscow State University at the Mathematics and Applied Linguistics of the Philological Faculty, from which he graduated in 1971. In 1980 he completed the
High Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors (Mikhail Lvovsky's Workshop). Lungin worked primarily as a scriptwriter until given the opportunity to direct
Taxi Blues at age 40. The film starred well-known musician
Pyotr Mamonov. For the film he received the Best Director Prize at
1990 Cannes Film Festival. That same year he took up residence in
France, while making films in and about Russia with French producers. Two years later, his next film
Luna Park would also compete at the
1992 Cannes Film Festival. In 1993 he was a member of the jury at the
18th Moscow International Film Festival. He was the librettist for
Nikolai Karetnikov's opera
Till Eulenspiegel (written 1983) and Karetnikov's
oratorio The Mystery of St. Paul. At the
2000 Cannes Film Festival, Pavel Lungin's film
The Wedding was awarded the Special Jury Prize for the best ensemble cast. In 2001 Pavel Lungin began shooting his new film
Tycoon based on novel
The Big Ration. The picture was a drama set during the
Mikhail Gorbachev years about five students who jump on the private
capitalism movement. The film was released in Russia in October 2002. Lungin made the black comedy
Poor Relatives in 2005, winner of the main prize of the
Kinotavr 2005 Festival, and a television miniseries based on
Nikolai Gogol's works, titled
The Case of "Dead Souls", which premiered on
NTV in September 2005. Both
Poor Relatives and
The Case of "Dead Souls" starred
Konstantin Khabensky. In 2006 he directed the religious film
The Island which also had Mamonov in the lead role. The film closed the
63rd Venice International Film Festival and was praised by the
Russian Orthodox Church leader
Alexis II. He was the president of the jury at the
31st Moscow International Film Festival in 2009. In the same year he made the film
Tsar with
Pyotr Mamonov and
Oleg Yankovskiy. The film competed in the
Un Certain Regard section at the
2009 Cannes Film Festival. In March 2014 he signed a letter in support of the position of the President of Russia
Vladimir Putin on
Russia's military intervention in Ukraine and
Crimea. For this he was banned from entering
Ukraine. Crimea is
since March 2014 under Russian occupation. Lungin directed the thriller
The Queen of Spades in 2016. The picture is about opera singers preparing for a performance in the
Queen of Spades. From 2015 he is the director of political thriller television series
Homeland, a localized adaptation of
Prisoners of War. In 2019, along with his son Aleksander, Lungin won the
Golden Goblet Award for Best Screenplay at the
Shanghai International Film Festival. ==Filmography (as director)==