Aleksei Oktyabrinovich Balabanov (25 February 1959 – 18 May 2013) was a Russian film director, screenwriter, and producer, who shot mostly arthouse pictures but gained mainstream popularity with the crime drama Brother (1997) and its more action-oriented sequel, Brother 2 (2000), both of which starred Sergei Bodrov, Jr. as Danila Bagrov. Brother was successful both at the box office and in video copies, achieving wide popularity in Russia. Later, however, Balabanov became better known for his films Cargo 200 (2007) and Morphine (2008). A hugely controversial figure, Balabanov was often accused of both Russian nationalism (Brother 2, War) and  Russophobia (Cargo 200, The Stoker), as well as general misanthropy. Due to his personal and political controversy, grotesque style, dark humour, shocking naturalism, genre deconstruction, and balancing between art cinema and mainstream he was often compared to Lars von Trier, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Coen brothers, and Takeshi Kitano.

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