Alexeï Balabanov

Aleksei Balabanov was born in 1959 in Yekaterinburg, (USSR). In 1981 he graduated from Translation Faculty of Gorky Teachers’ Training University. From 1983 to 1987, Aleksei Balabanov worked as an assistant of a film director at Sverdlovsk film studio. He studied at the experimental course “Authors’ Cinema” of the High Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors.He is best known for the 1997 crime film Brat (English title: Brother), and its more action-oriented sequel, Brat-2 (Brother 2), both of which starred the late Sergei Bodrov Jr. as a novice hit man. The second film, along with its soundtrack, was immensely popular in Russia. He has become better known for his shocking and controversial films Gruz 200 (2007) and Morphine (2008).