Presentation of family in Zvyagintsev films: A semiotic ananlysis

Cinema confronts us with unpredictable and unexpected ways and methods with the realities of our life as an art and as a technological potential. The family is at the center of life as an existential phenomenon. It'a also a well-known fact that the basic characteristics of human beings develope in a family environment and by family ties. It's the subject of this study that how family and its ties are presented and represented in Zvyagintsev's films with the contradictions created by the time period which we live in. In this study, Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Return (2003), The Bunishment (2007), and Elena (2011) films are selected to analyse according to Roland Barthes' semiotic approach in the context of family and family relations. Key Words: Cinema, Family, Russian Cinema, Semiotics, Andrei Zvyagintsev