Pavel Semyonovich Lungin is a Russian film director who was awarded the distinction People`s Artist of Russia in 2008. Lungin worked primarily as a scriptwriter until given the opportunity to direct Taxi Blues at age 40. The film starred well-known musician Pyotr Mamonov. For the film he received the Best Director Prize at 1990 Cannes Film Festival. He was the President of the Jury at the 31st Moscow International Film Festival in 2009. In the same year he made the film Tsar with Pyotr Mamonov and Oleg Yankovskiy. The film competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In March 2014 he signed a letter in support of the position of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin on Russia`s military intervention in Ukraine and Crimea. For this he was banned from entering Ukraine. Crimea is since March 2014 under dispute by Russia and Ukraine. From 2015 he is the director of political thriller television series Homeland, a localized adaptation of Prisoners of War. Lungin directed the thriller The Queen of Spades in 2016. In 2019, along with his son Aleksander, Lungin won the Golden Goblet Award for Best Screenplay at the Shanghai International Film Festival.