The acclaimed Russian director Aleksey Balabanov has been found dead at the age of 54 after suffering a seizure at a sanatorium just outside St Petersburg. Despite immediate assistance, he did not regain consciousness. The news comes just as Balabanov's film The Stoker hits UK cinemas.
Balabanov, who has made 16 feature films and won numerous awards, was recently the subject of a retrospective at the Bradford Film Festival and it was hoped this might herald a breakthrough into western markets. Despite his relative youth, his work has been compared to that of giants of Russian cinema like Tarkovsky.
Born in Sverdlovsk, Balabanov had been a resident of St Petersburg for just over 20 years. He had been ill for some time but was still working, developing a new script at the time of his death. He is survived by his wife, Nadezhda Vasilyeva, and their two sons.
