"The tanks rolled down the street and constructed a barricade under my windows," he wrote. "It is erected with a lot of savoir-faire, like these people had been doing it all their lives. There had been shots the night before, and the first victims were being counted. In Cannes, with its grand staircase and its red carpet, with its breakfasts under the tents on the beach, with its crowds gathering daily for the festivities, all this seemed today to be not only unreal but also a bit indecent."

Born in 1949 in Moscow, of Russian and French descent, Lungin graduated from the Department of Structural Linguistics at Moscow University, then studied screen-writing at the Moscow Film school (VGIK). He is one of two prominent Mosfilm screen-writers (Sergei Bodrov being the other) who broke the barrier separating writers and directors in Russian film production. He is the sort of radical writer-director who Goskino officials feared and detested during the heyday of socialist realism.

By way of comparison, Sergei Bodrov was born in 1948 in Siberia, and studied at the Moscow Institute for Energetics and VGIK. He penned over 30 screenplays until, in 1984, he was working on the feature Sweet Dreams In The Grass and noticed cases of unused film laying around. Using this footage, with the cooperation of friends on the film crew, he directed The Non-Professionals (1985) ­ and saw it promptly shelved by Goskino. Two years later, during the early days of perestroika (reconstruction), it was given its first screening among the Forbidden Films programmed during the Moscow film festival ­ and Bodrov was invited to the 1988 International Forum of Young Cinema at the Berlinale.

Blues and since Pavel is as proficient in French as in Russian - as well as having deep respect for French culture ­ he was given the option to direct his own script. Taxi Blues was selected for the competition at the 1990 Cannes festival, contended for Camera d'Or honours, and won the Best Director prize. The story of a love-hate relationship, it depicts an encounter between a taxi-driver loner interested only in money and a Jewish alcoholic musician that eventually ends in tragedy.

Pavel Lungin clarified his position on suddenly being hailed as one of Russia's first auteur directors by saying, "I don't believe at all in the 'artist' ­ I believe in his 'work'. The 'artist' is an ordinary person, with his complexes, his vanity, and his ambitions. When I shoot a film, I am completely detached. And if the results are good, some forces are coming from elsewhere, this energy from somewhere else goes through me as though I am being guided by a 'current' (of inspiration)."

This interest in viewing life and places in closeup brought Pavel Lungin to the documentary film. After Taxi Blues, he made Gulag ­ Secret Of Happiness (1991), followed by three other documentaries: Nice ­ The Little Russia (1993), The Eskimos ­ Unnecessary People (1994), and a portrait of Vladimir Mayakovsky (1998). In between, he made the features Luna Park (1992), Lifeline (1996), and now he has made La Noce (The Wedding).

Luna Park, invited to compete at the 1992 Cannes festival, takes the pulse of the nationalist movement in the cities of Russia. Described by Lungin as "a journey through post-perestroika Moscow", the film focuses on Andrei, a young nationalist leader, who heads a gang ­ until he discovers the shocking truth that his father, who he has never known, is a Jew.

uddenly appears on the scene, while rumours grow about this "creature from the den of iniquity". Mishka's father, hailed as a local hero, is furious. Mishka's mother sheds tears over her son's future, and Mishka prepares for a showdown.

A tragi-comedy packed with critical comment and unexpected humourous twists, The Wedding comes across as an accurate and disturbing mirror to current affairs in provincial Russia.

Ron Holloway