Mark, his wife Vera, and their children Eva and Kir take a trip to the countryside to his father’s old home. The easy family dynamic is soon interrupted and the cracks in the illusion of domestic harmony are revealed. Loosely based on William Saroyan’s The Laughing Matter, The Banishment is a moody drama heavy with religious and moral symbols and images, and the opaque yet somehow recognizable characters move through a stark and elegant world that hides tremendous pain, as photographed by DOP Mikhail Krichman. Director Andrey Zvyagintsev describes his follow-up to the critically acclaimed The Return as being about “…all of us ? kind, beautiful people in the tragic circumstances of hopelessness.” Konstantin Lavronenko won the award for Best Actor at Cannes in 2007 for his performance as Mark.