Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s latest documentary, “The Natural History of Destruction,” bows May 23 in the Cannes Premiere section of the Cannes Film Festival. The director returns to the Croisette one year after his last feature, “Babi Yar. Context,” won a Special Jury Prize of the Golden Eye award for best documentary. Variety has been given exclusive access to the film’s trailer.
Inspired by a book by German writer W.G. Sebald, “The Natural History of Destruction” makes use of an unprecedented trove of archive footage to re-examine the strategic bombing campaign of Allied forces in Germany during the Second World War. The unsparing attacks were designed to destroy the country’s war capabilities and break the German people’s morale.
Loznitsa poses the question whether it’s morally acceptable to use civilian populations as a means of war — an urgent question as Russia’s brutal onslaught in Ukraine...
Inspired by a book by German writer W.G. Sebald, “The Natural History of Destruction” makes use of an unprecedented trove of archive footage to re-examine the strategic bombing campaign of Allied forces in Germany during the Second World War. The unsparing attacks were designed to destroy the country’s war capabilities and break the German people’s morale.
Loznitsa poses the question whether it’s morally acceptable to use civilian populations as a means of war — an urgent question as Russia’s brutal onslaught in Ukraine...
- 5/22/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
After genocide comes chronocideThere exists no footage of the massacre of 33,771 Jews that took place on September 29–30,1941 in Babi Yar, a deep ravine northwest of Kiev, the capital and most populous city of Ukraine.
And yet Babi Yar. Context is based entirely on archival footage as it reconstructs the historical context of this tragedy by documenting the German occupation of Ukraine using the events leading up to the massacre and the aftermath of the atrocity of September 29–30,1941 when Sonderkommando 4a of the Einsatzgruppe C, assisted by two battalions of the Police Regiment South and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, and without any resistance from the local population, shot dead in the Babi Yar ravine in the north-west of Kiev 33 771 Jews.
Scriptwriter/Director Sergei Loznitsa presented the film, a coproduction of The Netherlands and Ukraine, in Cannes Film Festival 2021 where it won the Special Jury Prize, the L’Oeil d’Or for Best Documentary.
At his press conference he said, “When memory turns into oblivion, when the past overshadows the future, it is the voice of cinema that articulates the truth. Such events push the artist to tell the story in a way that is interesting to people. Cinema brings people into the event and changes our perception. “
Scriptwriter/Director Sergei Loznitsa
Says Loznitsa, When I put together the story of Babi Yar, I tried to reconstruct the historical context of life in German occupied Kiev. A lot of German officers and soldiers had brought with them amateur film cameras and filmed daily life in the city. This footage wasn’t suitable for propaganda newsreels, but I find this material the most interesting and fascinating of all. You get to see some fragments of daily life in Kiev in 1941–1943. I believe that it is crucially important to connect the tragedy of the extermination of the entire Jewish population of Kiev with the realities of life under German occupation.
The footage comes from a number of public and private archives in Russia, Germany and Ukraine. We have been researching this material quite extensively: our researchers worked at the Russian State Archive in Krasnogorsk (Rgakfd), at the Bundesarchiv and at a number of regional archives in Germany, and also we managed to access some private collections. The quality of the footage differed greatly. Some material was in a reasonably good condition, while some other reels were seriously damaged. The restoration work lasted for several months.
Some of the footage I work with has been buried in the archives for decades — nobody has ever seen it. Not even historians, specialising in the Holocaust in the Ussr. One such episode is the explosions of Kreschatik in September 1941. Kiev’s central street was mined with remote controlled explosives by the Nkvd (Soviet secret service) before the Red army had retreated from Kiev. The detonations of the explosives were carried out a few days after the Germans took the city. There were civilian casualties, and thousands were left homeless. The Soviets, who planted the bombs, did not consider human casualties and mass destruction as a significant factor in their military planning.
Another rare piece of footage, which I use in the film, is the footage of the last public execution in Kiev in January 1946. Twelve Nazi criminals were hanged in the city’s central square, which was then known as Kalinin square. 200 000 residents of Kiev gathered in the square to watch the execution. The whole scene has a very medieval feel to it. Or, perhaps, biblical — “an eye for an eye” …
What 33,771 bodies look like can only be imagined through this documentary’s use of footage of the masses of Soviet prisoners of war (more than 600,000) marching, most of whom never returned home, or of citizens digging ditches for miles and miles, including women stripped to their underwear, barefoot, or the 1 million citizens of Kiev who turned out for the public hanging of the Nazis who ordered and carried out the massacre of the Jews.
The initial shock one had long ago on seeing the photographs which were first shown as proof of the Holocaust, bodies piled on one another, photographs which today seem to have lost their original shock value as we become immune to brutality seen over and over again, is replicated during a prolonged experience watching Babi Yar. Context. Its use of the archival footage depicting the masses and masses of puts us, the viewer, into a state of silent shock. The impact recalls my emotional reaction on seeing photographs of ‘Miners in Brazil’ by Sebastião Salgado in1986 on view at the Tate.
The film opens with an explosion and a black and white interstitial card reading “June 1941 Soviet Ukraine”. One hears a distant yell and a dog barking, a vague mix of human voies. A peaceful village burns as does the power plant. Endless billows of smoke spread across the country side. People quietly gather in the city to watch planes overhead, and a loudspeaker which says, “Moscow calling with a special broadcast. Cititens of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941 at 4 am…”
Germans move in and the people greet them with waves and the smiling Germans say “danke” as they are given bouquets of flowers. As people cheer, they happily tear down the posted of Stalin.
One sees male prisoners gathered on the ground and hears a German say, “He can’t walk. What will we do with him?”
One sees beautifully photographed masses of men, prisoners or Jews? Surrendering or being arrested. A color still photograph shows ruined houses and women left among ruins, the ruined bridge, a house burning, dead soldiers and civilians.
Shortly after the Wehrmacht occupied the city, a team of Soviet secret police (Nkvd) dynamited most of the buildings on the main street of the city, where German military and civil authorities had occupied most of the buildings; the buildings burned for days and 25,000 people were left homeless.
Allegedly in response to the actions of the Nkvd, the Germans accused the Jews of collaborating.
On 26 September 1941 the following order was posted:
All Yids of the city of Kiev and its vicinity must appear on Monday, September 29, by 8 o’clock in the morning at the corner of Mel’nikova and Dokterivskaya streets (near the Viis’kove cemetery). Bring documents, money and valuables, and also warm clothing, linen, etc. Any Yids who do not follow this order and are found elsewhere will be shot. Any civilians who enter the dwellings left by Yids[a] and appropriate the things in them will be shot.
Notice posted in Kyiv dated on or around 26 September, 1941 in Russian, Ukrainian with German translation ordering all Kyivan Jews to assemble for supposed resettlement.
Expecting 5 or 6,000, nearly 34,000 reported and were taken to Babi Yar and massacred. In the months that followed, thousands more were taken to Babi Yar where they were shot. It is estimated that the Germans murdered more than 100,000 Jews at Babi Yar during World War II, wiping out the entire population.
As an aside, and not included in this documentary, which is not a political statement in any way, several attempts were made to erect a memorial at Babi Yar to commemorate the fate of the Jewish victims. All attempts were overruled. A turning point was Yevtushenko’s 1961 poem on Babi Yar, which begins “Nad Babim Yarom pamyatnikov nyet” (“There are no monuments over Babi Yar”); it is also the first line of Shostakovitch’s Symphony №13. An official memorial to Soviet citizens shot at Babi Yar was erected in 1976.
Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, an international non governmental organization, was established in 2016 in order to acquire, study and disseminate knowledge about the tragedy. It is planning a museum complex at Babi Yar, which will be one of the world’s largest Holocaust memorial centerss with research institutes, a library and a museum. But the first building to appear on the site is a house of prayer.
Babi Yar. Context is part of the Center’s efforts to use art as a medium for commemorating the Babi Yar tragedy, with a number of powerful sculptures and installations already unveiled during the past year at Babi Yar. The launch of the film is also an important component of the Center’s efforts to mark this year’s 80th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre — Activities are taking place throughout the year across the world and will culminate in an international event including global leaders in October.
Sergei Loznitsa’s years of research culminates in what he considers just a starting point for discussion, not about history but about people who live(d) not only Ukraine but who today are also witnessing genocidal massacres throughout the world. The emotional impact is what needs to be felt and film makes emotional moments live as they resonate with the viewers’ emotions.
Some voices, some few subtitles, a lot of silence, fabulous photography of the faces of the prisoners, long endless lines and groups of people, Nazis arresting people, invading quiet homes followed by them setting them aflame — you hear the surprised screams of the people within, men, women and children shoveling and carrying dirt, building fortifications.
August 1941 celebrations with Nazi signs, military and Nazis warmly greeted. Lots of pomp and then a black halt. Switch to lines of tanks moving forward shooting, starting fires, miles and miles a burned autos and trucks, masses and masses of people, pure devastation of burned landscapes, much like we are seeing today as fires destroy our countries. Triumphal Germans allow women to take their prisoner husbands home, smiling, a mere token.
September 24, 1941, Kiev, hanging potsers of Hitler: The Liberator, a peaceful city until the explosion by the Soviets leads to the exterminatinog of the entire Jewish community.
However, even more incredible was the actions taken by the Nazis … SS mobilized a party of 100 Russian war prisoners, who were taken to the ravines… these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar [sic] to form the foundation of a huge funeral pyre. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners decided it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi machine guns.[38]
July 1944 Soviet troops tour Lviv, Polish Lwów, German Lemberg, Russian Lvov, the largest city in Western Ukraine, historically the center of Galicia, a region now divided between Ukraine and Poland.
Down come the German street signs, up go the Cyrillic signs, down come the posters of Hitler, up go the posters of Stalin. Flowers are offered to new carloads of officers, dancers celebrate, masses and masses of people again crowd into testimonies and for the execution by hanging in the public square of those guilty of the brutal extermination of Soviet citizens and prisoners of war, for the destruction of cities and villages, and the enslavement of the population of Soviet Ukraine.
As if the Ukrainian population had no responsibility for helping kill the Jews, the Gypsies, the mentally ill…there is no mention of that…only masses of onlookers watching as it happens.
On December 2, 1952 the Kiev city council decided to fill the spurs of Babi Yar ravine with industrial waste from the nearby brick factory which was erecting boxlike multistoried apartments.
One is left to wonder, what is the legacy of war and of Babi Yar?
How did Sergei Loznitsa, director/script writer/producer, born on 5 September 1964 in Baranovici (Ussr) come to make this film? Was he merely commissioned by the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center which will commemorate the 80th anniversity of this on October 6, 2021?
He grew up in Kiev, and in 1987 graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic with a degree in applied mathematics. Sergei Loznitsa went on to study feature film making at the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (Vgik) in Moscow.
He has already directed 22 internationally acclaimed documentary films and 4 feature films, all of which premiered in the Official Selection of Cannes Film Festival.
His answer illuminates the need for this film:
When I was little, we lived in the Nyvki district of Kiev. There is a forest between Nyviki and the Syretz district, where Babi Yar is located. From the age of 10, several times a week, I used to take a bus from my house to the «Vanguard» swimming pool in Syretz, and come back on foot, through the wooded area and the ravine, occasionally stumbling across the stones with faded inscriptions in a strange language. In fact, I was walking through the remains of the old Jewish cemetery, abandoned at the time, or to be precise, not yet completely raised to the ground by the local authorities. One day, when on my usual route back home, I came across a new stone. This stone had a fresh inscription in Russian, which stated that there would be a monument inaugurated on this very spot. Having read the inscription, I went home to my parents and asked them what had happened in Babi Yar and why was it necessary to put a monument there. I never received a direct answer. Adults tried to avoid the subject, and their answers seemed vague. As far as I know, this was a taboo subject in Kiev in the 70-s. Even in the 50-s, immediately after the war, the tragedy of Babi Yar was covered in a shroud of silence.
Today, they say that Soviet ideology was to blame for this silence, but I think that the problem lies deeper. It’s about human nature in general. Talking about this tragedy makes one feel uncomfortable. The memory of it is shameful and scary. In Vasily Grossman’s «Life and fate» there is a passage — a letter written by a Jewish mother to her son. She wrote it just before being taken to the ghetto. This text has a documentary reference: Grossman quotes the letter from his own mother, who died in the Berdichev ghetto. She wrote that as soon as the Jews were declared «outlaws», her neighbours in the communal apartment threw her out of her room, and she found her possessions piled up in the cellar. It was neither the communist party, nor the Soviet authorities, it was her neighbours who threw her out of the flat. They simply told her that she no longer had the right to live there. The Jews were «against the law».
I study dehumanisation, the loss of humanity by a human being. This is why it is important to begin the documentary about Babi Yar with the German invasion. There was a regime change, and prior to that — a short period of chaos, of lawlessness. It is during this moment, when the true nature of a human is revealed. Without control and pressure from the authorities, in an atmosphere of chaos, it seems that anything is allowed, any action can go unpunished.
I have every reason to believe that back in September 1941, many residents of Kiev had suspected that Jews were going to be killed and not “relocated to the south”. But no one protested. Of course, it is impossible to judge people, who had found themselves in the most extreme and difficult circumstances, but it is possible to reflect upon this whole situation. In fact, it is necessary to think about it. No doubt there were the righteous among them — those who hid the Jews in their houses, who helped them survive. But they were few and far between. This is what scares me. Certain individuals committed heroic acts and risked their lives by helping the Jews, while thousands of others remained indifferent to the fate of the Jews, preoccupied with their own “housing issues” and dividing the remaining Jewish property. Neighbours reported on their neighbours, concierges acted as informants — they used the same lists of residents, which they had previously supplied Nkvd with, to report the Jews to the Germans. After the massacre, a few remaining invalids and elderly Jews in the Podol district of Kiev, who were too frail to walk to Babi Yar, were hunted by the local residents, dragged out of their apartments and stoned to death. The locals did it on their own initiative, without any German involvement. I saw the archive documents, describing these atrocities, with my own eyes.
I believe we must learn the truth. The knowledge of history is the best-known defence against chronocide. It is also the only way out of the Soviet/Post-Soviet swamp, where the countries, heirs to the former Ussr, find themselves today.
The world premiere of the documentary Babi Yar. Context was held on July 11 in the Séances Speciales section of the Cannes Film Festival. Ukrainian audiences will be able to see this film in the fall during events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre.
The documentary film Babi Yar. Context was produced by Atoms & Void (The Netherlands) by order of Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (Ukraine).
The film received the L’Œil d’or (Golden Eye) award for documentaries. Since 2015, the honor has been awarded to the best documentary presented in one of the sections of the Cannes Film Festival.
Following the award, director Sergey Loznitsa commented, I hope that this award will enable us to reach wider audiences worldwide. And, of course, I very much hope that this film will be screened in Ukraine and will inspire a meaningful discussion. This is particularly important for the country, on whose territory these tragic events took place 80 years ago. Thank you very much! Merci beaucoup!
Babi Yar. Context
Script writer/Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Editors: Sergei Loznitsa, Danielius Kokanauskis, Tomasz Wolski
Sound: Vladimir Golovnitski
Image restoration: Jonas Zagorskas
Producers: Sergei Loznitsa, Maria Choustova
Associate Producers: Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Max Yakover
Production: Atoms & Void for Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial
Center
2021, documentary, 121 min, The Netherlands, Ukraine
contact@atomsvoid.com
© Atoms & Void...
And yet Babi Yar. Context is based entirely on archival footage as it reconstructs the historical context of this tragedy by documenting the German occupation of Ukraine using the events leading up to the massacre and the aftermath of the atrocity of September 29–30,1941 when Sonderkommando 4a of the Einsatzgruppe C, assisted by two battalions of the Police Regiment South and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, and without any resistance from the local population, shot dead in the Babi Yar ravine in the north-west of Kiev 33 771 Jews.
Scriptwriter/Director Sergei Loznitsa presented the film, a coproduction of The Netherlands and Ukraine, in Cannes Film Festival 2021 where it won the Special Jury Prize, the L’Oeil d’Or for Best Documentary.
At his press conference he said, “When memory turns into oblivion, when the past overshadows the future, it is the voice of cinema that articulates the truth. Such events push the artist to tell the story in a way that is interesting to people. Cinema brings people into the event and changes our perception. “
Scriptwriter/Director Sergei Loznitsa
Says Loznitsa, When I put together the story of Babi Yar, I tried to reconstruct the historical context of life in German occupied Kiev. A lot of German officers and soldiers had brought with them amateur film cameras and filmed daily life in the city. This footage wasn’t suitable for propaganda newsreels, but I find this material the most interesting and fascinating of all. You get to see some fragments of daily life in Kiev in 1941–1943. I believe that it is crucially important to connect the tragedy of the extermination of the entire Jewish population of Kiev with the realities of life under German occupation.
The footage comes from a number of public and private archives in Russia, Germany and Ukraine. We have been researching this material quite extensively: our researchers worked at the Russian State Archive in Krasnogorsk (Rgakfd), at the Bundesarchiv and at a number of regional archives in Germany, and also we managed to access some private collections. The quality of the footage differed greatly. Some material was in a reasonably good condition, while some other reels were seriously damaged. The restoration work lasted for several months.
Some of the footage I work with has been buried in the archives for decades — nobody has ever seen it. Not even historians, specialising in the Holocaust in the Ussr. One such episode is the explosions of Kreschatik in September 1941. Kiev’s central street was mined with remote controlled explosives by the Nkvd (Soviet secret service) before the Red army had retreated from Kiev. The detonations of the explosives were carried out a few days after the Germans took the city. There were civilian casualties, and thousands were left homeless. The Soviets, who planted the bombs, did not consider human casualties and mass destruction as a significant factor in their military planning.
Another rare piece of footage, which I use in the film, is the footage of the last public execution in Kiev in January 1946. Twelve Nazi criminals were hanged in the city’s central square, which was then known as Kalinin square. 200 000 residents of Kiev gathered in the square to watch the execution. The whole scene has a very medieval feel to it. Or, perhaps, biblical — “an eye for an eye” …
What 33,771 bodies look like can only be imagined through this documentary’s use of footage of the masses of Soviet prisoners of war (more than 600,000) marching, most of whom never returned home, or of citizens digging ditches for miles and miles, including women stripped to their underwear, barefoot, or the 1 million citizens of Kiev who turned out for the public hanging of the Nazis who ordered and carried out the massacre of the Jews.
The initial shock one had long ago on seeing the photographs which were first shown as proof of the Holocaust, bodies piled on one another, photographs which today seem to have lost their original shock value as we become immune to brutality seen over and over again, is replicated during a prolonged experience watching Babi Yar. Context. Its use of the archival footage depicting the masses and masses of puts us, the viewer, into a state of silent shock. The impact recalls my emotional reaction on seeing photographs of ‘Miners in Brazil’ by Sebastião Salgado in1986 on view at the Tate.
The film opens with an explosion and a black and white interstitial card reading “June 1941 Soviet Ukraine”. One hears a distant yell and a dog barking, a vague mix of human voies. A peaceful village burns as does the power plant. Endless billows of smoke spread across the country side. People quietly gather in the city to watch planes overhead, and a loudspeaker which says, “Moscow calling with a special broadcast. Cititens of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941 at 4 am…”
Germans move in and the people greet them with waves and the smiling Germans say “danke” as they are given bouquets of flowers. As people cheer, they happily tear down the posted of Stalin.
One sees male prisoners gathered on the ground and hears a German say, “He can’t walk. What will we do with him?”
One sees beautifully photographed masses of men, prisoners or Jews? Surrendering or being arrested. A color still photograph shows ruined houses and women left among ruins, the ruined bridge, a house burning, dead soldiers and civilians.
Shortly after the Wehrmacht occupied the city, a team of Soviet secret police (Nkvd) dynamited most of the buildings on the main street of the city, where German military and civil authorities had occupied most of the buildings; the buildings burned for days and 25,000 people were left homeless.
Allegedly in response to the actions of the Nkvd, the Germans accused the Jews of collaborating.
On 26 September 1941 the following order was posted:
All Yids of the city of Kiev and its vicinity must appear on Monday, September 29, by 8 o’clock in the morning at the corner of Mel’nikova and Dokterivskaya streets (near the Viis’kove cemetery). Bring documents, money and valuables, and also warm clothing, linen, etc. Any Yids who do not follow this order and are found elsewhere will be shot. Any civilians who enter the dwellings left by Yids[a] and appropriate the things in them will be shot.
Notice posted in Kyiv dated on or around 26 September, 1941 in Russian, Ukrainian with German translation ordering all Kyivan Jews to assemble for supposed resettlement.
Expecting 5 or 6,000, nearly 34,000 reported and were taken to Babi Yar and massacred. In the months that followed, thousands more were taken to Babi Yar where they were shot. It is estimated that the Germans murdered more than 100,000 Jews at Babi Yar during World War II, wiping out the entire population.
As an aside, and not included in this documentary, which is not a political statement in any way, several attempts were made to erect a memorial at Babi Yar to commemorate the fate of the Jewish victims. All attempts were overruled. A turning point was Yevtushenko’s 1961 poem on Babi Yar, which begins “Nad Babim Yarom pamyatnikov nyet” (“There are no monuments over Babi Yar”); it is also the first line of Shostakovitch’s Symphony №13. An official memorial to Soviet citizens shot at Babi Yar was erected in 1976.
Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, an international non governmental organization, was established in 2016 in order to acquire, study and disseminate knowledge about the tragedy. It is planning a museum complex at Babi Yar, which will be one of the world’s largest Holocaust memorial centerss with research institutes, a library and a museum. But the first building to appear on the site is a house of prayer.
Babi Yar. Context is part of the Center’s efforts to use art as a medium for commemorating the Babi Yar tragedy, with a number of powerful sculptures and installations already unveiled during the past year at Babi Yar. The launch of the film is also an important component of the Center’s efforts to mark this year’s 80th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre — Activities are taking place throughout the year across the world and will culminate in an international event including global leaders in October.
Sergei Loznitsa’s years of research culminates in what he considers just a starting point for discussion, not about history but about people who live(d) not only Ukraine but who today are also witnessing genocidal massacres throughout the world. The emotional impact is what needs to be felt and film makes emotional moments live as they resonate with the viewers’ emotions.
Some voices, some few subtitles, a lot of silence, fabulous photography of the faces of the prisoners, long endless lines and groups of people, Nazis arresting people, invading quiet homes followed by them setting them aflame — you hear the surprised screams of the people within, men, women and children shoveling and carrying dirt, building fortifications.
August 1941 celebrations with Nazi signs, military and Nazis warmly greeted. Lots of pomp and then a black halt. Switch to lines of tanks moving forward shooting, starting fires, miles and miles a burned autos and trucks, masses and masses of people, pure devastation of burned landscapes, much like we are seeing today as fires destroy our countries. Triumphal Germans allow women to take their prisoner husbands home, smiling, a mere token.
September 24, 1941, Kiev, hanging potsers of Hitler: The Liberator, a peaceful city until the explosion by the Soviets leads to the exterminatinog of the entire Jewish community.
However, even more incredible was the actions taken by the Nazis … SS mobilized a party of 100 Russian war prisoners, who were taken to the ravines… these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar [sic] to form the foundation of a huge funeral pyre. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners decided it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi machine guns.[38]
July 1944 Soviet troops tour Lviv, Polish Lwów, German Lemberg, Russian Lvov, the largest city in Western Ukraine, historically the center of Galicia, a region now divided between Ukraine and Poland.
Down come the German street signs, up go the Cyrillic signs, down come the posters of Hitler, up go the posters of Stalin. Flowers are offered to new carloads of officers, dancers celebrate, masses and masses of people again crowd into testimonies and for the execution by hanging in the public square of those guilty of the brutal extermination of Soviet citizens and prisoners of war, for the destruction of cities and villages, and the enslavement of the population of Soviet Ukraine.
As if the Ukrainian population had no responsibility for helping kill the Jews, the Gypsies, the mentally ill…there is no mention of that…only masses of onlookers watching as it happens.
On December 2, 1952 the Kiev city council decided to fill the spurs of Babi Yar ravine with industrial waste from the nearby brick factory which was erecting boxlike multistoried apartments.
One is left to wonder, what is the legacy of war and of Babi Yar?
How did Sergei Loznitsa, director/script writer/producer, born on 5 September 1964 in Baranovici (Ussr) come to make this film? Was he merely commissioned by the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center which will commemorate the 80th anniversity of this on October 6, 2021?
He grew up in Kiev, and in 1987 graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic with a degree in applied mathematics. Sergei Loznitsa went on to study feature film making at the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (Vgik) in Moscow.
He has already directed 22 internationally acclaimed documentary films and 4 feature films, all of which premiered in the Official Selection of Cannes Film Festival.
His answer illuminates the need for this film:
When I was little, we lived in the Nyvki district of Kiev. There is a forest between Nyviki and the Syretz district, where Babi Yar is located. From the age of 10, several times a week, I used to take a bus from my house to the «Vanguard» swimming pool in Syretz, and come back on foot, through the wooded area and the ravine, occasionally stumbling across the stones with faded inscriptions in a strange language. In fact, I was walking through the remains of the old Jewish cemetery, abandoned at the time, or to be precise, not yet completely raised to the ground by the local authorities. One day, when on my usual route back home, I came across a new stone. This stone had a fresh inscription in Russian, which stated that there would be a monument inaugurated on this very spot. Having read the inscription, I went home to my parents and asked them what had happened in Babi Yar and why was it necessary to put a monument there. I never received a direct answer. Adults tried to avoid the subject, and their answers seemed vague. As far as I know, this was a taboo subject in Kiev in the 70-s. Even in the 50-s, immediately after the war, the tragedy of Babi Yar was covered in a shroud of silence.
Today, they say that Soviet ideology was to blame for this silence, but I think that the problem lies deeper. It’s about human nature in general. Talking about this tragedy makes one feel uncomfortable. The memory of it is shameful and scary. In Vasily Grossman’s «Life and fate» there is a passage — a letter written by a Jewish mother to her son. She wrote it just before being taken to the ghetto. This text has a documentary reference: Grossman quotes the letter from his own mother, who died in the Berdichev ghetto. She wrote that as soon as the Jews were declared «outlaws», her neighbours in the communal apartment threw her out of her room, and she found her possessions piled up in the cellar. It was neither the communist party, nor the Soviet authorities, it was her neighbours who threw her out of the flat. They simply told her that she no longer had the right to live there. The Jews were «against the law».
I study dehumanisation, the loss of humanity by a human being. This is why it is important to begin the documentary about Babi Yar with the German invasion. There was a regime change, and prior to that — a short period of chaos, of lawlessness. It is during this moment, when the true nature of a human is revealed. Without control and pressure from the authorities, in an atmosphere of chaos, it seems that anything is allowed, any action can go unpunished.
I have every reason to believe that back in September 1941, many residents of Kiev had suspected that Jews were going to be killed and not “relocated to the south”. But no one protested. Of course, it is impossible to judge people, who had found themselves in the most extreme and difficult circumstances, but it is possible to reflect upon this whole situation. In fact, it is necessary to think about it. No doubt there were the righteous among them — those who hid the Jews in their houses, who helped them survive. But they were few and far between. This is what scares me. Certain individuals committed heroic acts and risked their lives by helping the Jews, while thousands of others remained indifferent to the fate of the Jews, preoccupied with their own “housing issues” and dividing the remaining Jewish property. Neighbours reported on their neighbours, concierges acted as informants — they used the same lists of residents, which they had previously supplied Nkvd with, to report the Jews to the Germans. After the massacre, a few remaining invalids and elderly Jews in the Podol district of Kiev, who were too frail to walk to Babi Yar, were hunted by the local residents, dragged out of their apartments and stoned to death. The locals did it on their own initiative, without any German involvement. I saw the archive documents, describing these atrocities, with my own eyes.
I believe we must learn the truth. The knowledge of history is the best-known defence against chronocide. It is also the only way out of the Soviet/Post-Soviet swamp, where the countries, heirs to the former Ussr, find themselves today.
The world premiere of the documentary Babi Yar. Context was held on July 11 in the Séances Speciales section of the Cannes Film Festival. Ukrainian audiences will be able to see this film in the fall during events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre.
The documentary film Babi Yar. Context was produced by Atoms & Void (The Netherlands) by order of Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (Ukraine).
The film received the L’Œil d’or (Golden Eye) award for documentaries. Since 2015, the honor has been awarded to the best documentary presented in one of the sections of the Cannes Film Festival.
Following the award, director Sergey Loznitsa commented, I hope that this award will enable us to reach wider audiences worldwide. And, of course, I very much hope that this film will be screened in Ukraine and will inspire a meaningful discussion. This is particularly important for the country, on whose territory these tragic events took place 80 years ago. Thank you very much! Merci beaucoup!
Babi Yar. Context
Script writer/Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Editors: Sergei Loznitsa, Danielius Kokanauskis, Tomasz Wolski
Sound: Vladimir Golovnitski
Image restoration: Jonas Zagorskas
Producers: Sergei Loznitsa, Maria Choustova
Associate Producers: Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Max Yakover
Production: Atoms & Void for Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial
Center
2021, documentary, 121 min, The Netherlands, Ukraine
contact@atomsvoid.com
© Atoms & Void...
- 5/10/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
War in Ukraine puts its history and culture in peril. Many showcases and three festival slots are being dedicated to Ukraine movies during this Cannes Film Festival. Readers, prepare yourself for a long blog here, there is so much to be said!
Maksym Nakonechnyi’s drama Butterfly Vision is in Un Certain Regard. Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region began fighting in 2014 and are resurging now as Russia invades. In this story, a female Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance expert returns home to her family after serving in Donbas, where she was captured and held prisoner for months. The trauma of captivity continues to torment her and surface in dreamlike ways, yet she refuses to identify as a victim and fights to liberate herself. Paris-based distribution and production company Nour Films will release it theatrically in France just after Cannes.
‘Butterfly Vision’ by Maksym Nakonechnyi
As a debut feature in Official Selection, Directors’ Fortnight or Critics’ Week, it is eligible for the Caméra d’Or. The film is a coproduction of Kyiv-based production company Tabor, cofounded by Nakonechnyi, Croatia’s 4Films, the Czech Republic’s MasterFilm and Sweden’s Sisyfos. International sales are by Wild Bunch.
‘The Natural History of Destruction’ by Sergey Loznitsa
The Natural History of Destruction, in Special Screenings of Cannes Ff is a documentary based on the book by German writer W.G. Sebald, examining the perception and processing of the phenomenon of mass destruction of the German civilian population in European post-war literature. The film posits the question: is it morally acceptable to use a civilian population as an instrument of war? Director Sergey Loznitsa won the prize for Best Doc last year in Cannes with his incredible deeply moving Babi Yar. Context (Read my blog on it here.) Producer Maria Choustova has worked with Loznitsa on most of his films. This is an international coproduction of Netherlands, Germany and Lithuania. International sales are by Progress Films.
Pamfir will screeen in Directors’ Fortnight. As a first film, it too is eligible for the Camera d’or. A coproduction of Ukraine, France, Poland, Chile and Luxembourg, the Ukranian language film, directed by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk takes place in Western Ukraine, on the eve of a traditional carnival. Pamfir returns to his family after months of absence. Their love is so unconditional that when his only child starts a fire in the prayer house, Pamfir has no other choice but to reconnect with his troubled past to repair his son’s fault. He will be taken on a risky path with irreversible consequences. International sales are by Indie Sales.
Tallinn Goes to Cannes Works-in-Progress will show works from Ukraine, both in person and online. as announced by Estonia’s premier festival, Tallinn Black Nights, the only A-category film festival in Northern Europe. Also known as Poff, it screens around 200 features with four competitive programs. Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event is the one-week summit for film and audiovisual industry professionals which runs during the festival. Its 21st edition takes place from Nov 18–25 and welcomes projects and participants from around the globe.
Goes to Cannes Works-in-Progress Showcase to be held May 21, 2022, 14:15 - 16:15 GMT+2- Palais K and Online at 14:15 in every time zone will be dedicated to films from Ukraine.
Cannes Docs | Docs-in-Progress > Ukraine Showcase will also be held May 21, 2022, at 10:00 - 11:15 GMT+2 in Palais H.
Cannes Docs 2022 offers an exclusive series of eight showcases of curated docs-in-progress in finalization stage, aiming to hit the circuit within a few weeks or months. These showcases of docs-in-progress are primarily designed for international decision makers looking for fresh new titles – in particular festival programmers and sales agents –, but also generally addressed to any potential gap financing or post-production partner.
Docudays UA, in cooperation with the Ukrainian Institute, presents an exclusive showcase of four creative documentaries on the stage of production and post-production. The section we curated were all started before the current war but each of them was highly impacted by the events that are threatening the existence of our country. These 4 exceptionally cinematic projects present the reality of Ukraine before and during the war.
The Ukrainian Institute is a public institution that promotes Ukrainian culture internationally. Docudays UA is the main Ukrainian documentary international film festival with an annual 20K attendance.
Maksym Nakonechnyi’s drama Butterfly Vision is in Un Certain Regard. Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region began fighting in 2014 and are resurging now as Russia invades. In this story, a female Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance expert returns home to her family after serving in Donbas, where she was captured and held prisoner for months. The trauma of captivity continues to torment her and surface in dreamlike ways, yet she refuses to identify as a victim and fights to liberate herself. Paris-based distribution and production company Nour Films will release it theatrically in France just after Cannes.
‘Butterfly Vision’ by Maksym Nakonechnyi
As a debut feature in Official Selection, Directors’ Fortnight or Critics’ Week, it is eligible for the Caméra d’Or. The film is a coproduction of Kyiv-based production company Tabor, cofounded by Nakonechnyi, Croatia’s 4Films, the Czech Republic’s MasterFilm and Sweden’s Sisyfos. International sales are by Wild Bunch.
‘The Natural History of Destruction’ by Sergey Loznitsa
The Natural History of Destruction, in Special Screenings of Cannes Ff is a documentary based on the book by German writer W.G. Sebald, examining the perception and processing of the phenomenon of mass destruction of the German civilian population in European post-war literature. The film posits the question: is it morally acceptable to use a civilian population as an instrument of war? Director Sergey Loznitsa won the prize for Best Doc last year in Cannes with his incredible deeply moving Babi Yar. Context (Read my blog on it here.) Producer Maria Choustova has worked with Loznitsa on most of his films. This is an international coproduction of Netherlands, Germany and Lithuania. International sales are by Progress Films.
Pamfir will screeen in Directors’ Fortnight. As a first film, it too is eligible for the Camera d’or. A coproduction of Ukraine, France, Poland, Chile and Luxembourg, the Ukranian language film, directed by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk takes place in Western Ukraine, on the eve of a traditional carnival. Pamfir returns to his family after months of absence. Their love is so unconditional that when his only child starts a fire in the prayer house, Pamfir has no other choice but to reconnect with his troubled past to repair his son’s fault. He will be taken on a risky path with irreversible consequences. International sales are by Indie Sales.
Tallinn Goes to Cannes Works-in-Progress will show works from Ukraine, both in person and online. as announced by Estonia’s premier festival, Tallinn Black Nights, the only A-category film festival in Northern Europe. Also known as Poff, it screens around 200 features with four competitive programs. Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event is the one-week summit for film and audiovisual industry professionals which runs during the festival. Its 21st edition takes place from Nov 18–25 and welcomes projects and participants from around the globe.
Goes to Cannes Works-in-Progress Showcase to be held May 21, 2022, 14:15 - 16:15 GMT+2- Palais K and Online at 14:15 in every time zone will be dedicated to films from Ukraine.
Cannes Docs | Docs-in-Progress > Ukraine Showcase will also be held May 21, 2022, at 10:00 - 11:15 GMT+2 in Palais H.
Cannes Docs 2022 offers an exclusive series of eight showcases of curated docs-in-progress in finalization stage, aiming to hit the circuit within a few weeks or months. These showcases of docs-in-progress are primarily designed for international decision makers looking for fresh new titles – in particular festival programmers and sales agents –, but also generally addressed to any potential gap financing or post-production partner.
Docudays UA, in cooperation with the Ukrainian Institute, presents an exclusive showcase of four creative documentaries on the stage of production and post-production. The section we curated were all started before the current war but each of them was highly impacted by the events that are threatening the existence of our country. These 4 exceptionally cinematic projects present the reality of Ukraine before and during the war.
The Ukrainian Institute is a public institution that promotes Ukrainian culture internationally. Docudays UA is the main Ukrainian documentary international film festival with an annual 20K attendance.
- 5/8/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Progress Film, the historic distributor established in 1950 to handle the release of films produced by communist East Germany’s state-owned film studio, has announced plans to relaunch theatrical distribution and international sales.
The company has also acquired Sergei Loznitsa’s “The Natural History of Destruction,” which will have its world premiere as a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Progress is handling world sales as well as distribution in Germany, where it’s planning a theatrical release.
Based on WWII archive footage, “The Natural History of Destruction” puts forward the questions: Is it morally acceptable to use civilian populations as a means of war, and is it possible to justify mass destruction for the sake of higher “moral” ideals? Those questions remain as relevant today as they were 80 years ago, becoming ever more urgent amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
Progress Film was founded in East Berlin in...
The company has also acquired Sergei Loznitsa’s “The Natural History of Destruction,” which will have its world premiere as a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Progress is handling world sales as well as distribution in Germany, where it’s planning a theatrical release.
Based on WWII archive footage, “The Natural History of Destruction” puts forward the questions: Is it morally acceptable to use civilian populations as a means of war, and is it possible to justify mass destruction for the sake of higher “moral” ideals? Those questions remain as relevant today as they were 80 years ago, becoming ever more urgent amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
Progress Film was founded in East Berlin in...
- 5/5/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Joint statement delivered ahead of the festival’s Ukraine Day.
Ten South Korean film festivals have jointly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and paid tribute to filmmakers killed during the ongoing war.
At a press conference held on Friday (April 29) at Jeonju International Film Festival, festival directors who took to the stage included Jeonju’s Lee Joon-dong; Busan International Film Festival’s Huh Moonyung; Busan International Kids and Youth Film Festival’s Kim Sang-hwa; Dmz International Documentary Film Festival’s Jung Sang-jin; Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival’s Shin Chul; Ulju Mountain Film Festival’s Baed Chang-ho; Jecheon International...
Ten South Korean film festivals have jointly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and paid tribute to filmmakers killed during the ongoing war.
At a press conference held on Friday (April 29) at Jeonju International Film Festival, festival directors who took to the stage included Jeonju’s Lee Joon-dong; Busan International Film Festival’s Huh Moonyung; Busan International Kids and Youth Film Festival’s Kim Sang-hwa; Dmz International Documentary Film Festival’s Jung Sang-jin; Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival’s Shin Chul; Ulju Mountain Film Festival’s Baed Chang-ho; Jecheon International...
- 4/30/2022
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Joint statement delivered ahead of the festival’s Ukraine Day.
Ten South Korean film festivals have jointly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and paid tribute to filmmakers killed during the ongoing war.
At a press conference held on Friday (April 29) at Jeonju International Film Festival, festival directors who took to the stage included Jeonju’s Lee Joon-dong; Busan International Film Festival’s Huh Moonyung; Busan International Kids and Youth Film Festival’s Kim Sang-hwa; Dmz International Documentary Film Festival’s Jung Sang-jin; Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival’s Shin Chul; Ulju Mountain Film Festival’s Baed Chang-ho; Jecheon International...
Ten South Korean film festivals have jointly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and paid tribute to filmmakers killed during the ongoing war.
At a press conference held on Friday (April 29) at Jeonju International Film Festival, festival directors who took to the stage included Jeonju’s Lee Joon-dong; Busan International Film Festival’s Huh Moonyung; Busan International Kids and Youth Film Festival’s Kim Sang-hwa; Dmz International Documentary Film Festival’s Jung Sang-jin; Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival’s Shin Chul; Ulju Mountain Film Festival’s Baed Chang-ho; Jecheon International...
- 4/30/2022
- ScreenDaily
Babi Yar. Context The most harrowing detail in Sergei Loznitsa’s Babi Yar. Context is not an image but a sound. Culled entirely from archive footage shot by Nazi and Soviet filmmakers, the film chronicles of one of the darkest chapters in World War II and Jewish history, the massacre of nearly 34,000 Jews in German-occupied Kiev in September 1941. But it opens with a tragedy from three months before, the pogrom that decimated the Jewish community in Lvov—now Lviv—a city in western Ukraine. It’s June 30, 1941; no sooner have the Nazis arrived in town than the local Jews are accused of working for Stalin’s secret police, and forced to exhume the bodies of fellow Ukrainians whom Soviet forces murdered and buried in the city’s prison. The corpses, mostly males, are brought out in the courtyard, and a small army of women (their mothers? Wives? Sisters?) rushes to identify their loved ones.
- 4/1/2022
- MUBI
Now in its 11th edition, the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival brings together a varied, eclectic lineup of cinema from all corners of the world––including a number of films still seeking distribution, making the series perhaps one of your only chances to see these works on the big screen.
With the five-day festival kicking off Wednesday, March 16, we’ve gathered seven essential films to check out. Beginning this Friday, March 11, MoMI will also present Second Look, which looks back at selections from the past decade of the festival.
Babi Yar. Context (Sergei Loznitsa)
One of two new archival documentaries from Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa screening at First Look, Babi Yar. Context revisits the horrific September 1941 massacre of 33,771 Jews that took place outside Kyiv. Casting an unflinching eye in its assembly of footage, the Cannes prizewinner examines factors leading up to the atrocity as Nazis took...
With the five-day festival kicking off Wednesday, March 16, we’ve gathered seven essential films to check out. Beginning this Friday, March 11, MoMI will also present Second Look, which looks back at selections from the past decade of the festival.
Babi Yar. Context (Sergei Loznitsa)
One of two new archival documentaries from Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa screening at First Look, Babi Yar. Context revisits the horrific September 1941 massacre of 33,771 Jews that took place outside Kyiv. Casting an unflinching eye in its assembly of footage, the Cannes prizewinner examines factors leading up to the atrocity as Nazis took...
- 3/10/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
The European Film Academy (Efa) has issued an unequivocal condemnation of President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and excluded Russia from the European Film Awards.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Efa said: “The Academy strongly condemns the war started by Russia – Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory must be respected. Putin’s actions are atrocious and totally unacceptable, and we strongly condemn them.”
“What concerns us most is the fate of the Ukrainians, and our hearts are with the Ukrainian filmmaking community. We are fully aware that several of our members are fighting with arms against the aggressor. The Academy will therefore exclude Russian films from this year’s European Film Awards and we lend our support to each element of the boycott,” the Efa said.
This is the second statement on the matter from the Academy. On Feb. 24, hours after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Efa had issued a...
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Efa said: “The Academy strongly condemns the war started by Russia – Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory must be respected. Putin’s actions are atrocious and totally unacceptable, and we strongly condemn them.”
“What concerns us most is the fate of the Ukrainians, and our hearts are with the Ukrainian filmmaking community. We are fully aware that several of our members are fighting with arms against the aggressor. The Academy will therefore exclude Russian films from this year’s European Film Awards and we lend our support to each element of the boycott,” the Efa said.
This is the second statement on the matter from the Academy. On Feb. 24, hours after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Efa had issued a...
- 3/1/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Joint call from 40 cultural figures comes as Russian forces continue to amass on Ukrainian border.
Ukrainian filmmakers Oleg Sentsov and Sergei Loznitsa have joined leading figures from Ukraine’s cultural and scientific communities in an appeal for peace as Russian forces continue to amass on the Ukrainian border.
Some 40 cultural figures have issued a joint call to world leaders and urged Russia to deescalate tensions. “Today, Ukraine needs peace more than ever,” read their declaration. “Accumulation of Russian military forces around the borders of the European state as well as the constant discussions that the war will start almost tomorrow are alarming for us,...
Ukrainian filmmakers Oleg Sentsov and Sergei Loznitsa have joined leading figures from Ukraine’s cultural and scientific communities in an appeal for peace as Russian forces continue to amass on the Ukrainian border.
Some 40 cultural figures have issued a joint call to world leaders and urged Russia to deescalate tensions. “Today, Ukraine needs peace more than ever,” read their declaration. “Accumulation of Russian military forces around the borders of the European state as well as the constant discussions that the war will start almost tomorrow are alarming for us,...
- 2/14/2022
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
The 11th annual First Look festival at the Museum of the Moving Image released its star-studded lineup February 7.
The festival, which is set to take place March 16–20 at the MoMI museum in Astoria, Queens, will open with the New York City premiere of Camera d’Or winner “Murina.” Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović was honored with the title at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival for Best First Feature, and the film is executive produced by Martin Scorsese.
“Murina” is a coming-of-age story set in a scenic coastal Croatian town. Also on March 16, Tsai Ming-Liang’s ode to Hong Kong, “The Night,” will host its New York premiere. Closing Night selection and 2021 Locarno Grand Prix winner “The Balcony Movie” finishes off the festival.
The First Look festival features “new and innovative international cinema.” Spotlight screenings include the New York premiere of “Zero Fucks Given,” starring Adèle Exarchopoulos as a flight attendant in crisis,...
The festival, which is set to take place March 16–20 at the MoMI museum in Astoria, Queens, will open with the New York City premiere of Camera d’Or winner “Murina.” Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović was honored with the title at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival for Best First Feature, and the film is executive produced by Martin Scorsese.
“Murina” is a coming-of-age story set in a scenic coastal Croatian town. Also on March 16, Tsai Ming-Liang’s ode to Hong Kong, “The Night,” will host its New York premiere. Closing Night selection and 2021 Locarno Grand Prix winner “The Balcony Movie” finishes off the festival.
The First Look festival features “new and innovative international cinema.” Spotlight screenings include the New York premiere of “Zero Fucks Given,” starring Adèle Exarchopoulos as a flight attendant in crisis,...
- 2/7/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
However much you think you know about modern Lithuanian history, you’re almost certain to leave wiser after digesting all 248 minutes of . That the film is both intricately researched and archivally rich comes as no surprise considering it’s by Sergei Loznitsa, the sharp, scholarly and impossibly prolific Ukrainian filmmaker whose gift for spinning art from raw archival material has been repeatedly proven — most recently in this year’s Cannes selection “Babi Yar. Context.” Less expected, perhaps, is that a four-hour record of dense political negotiations and standoffs, braided with one extended talking-head interview, should go by as quickly as it does.
By no means easily achieved, the film’s balance of monumental historical heft and strong narrative drive secured it the top prize at this year’s edition of IDFA — the first stop in what is sure to be a long festival tour. Beyond that circuit, the project’s prospects are less sure,...
By no means easily achieved, the film’s balance of monumental historical heft and strong narrative drive secured it the top prize at this year’s edition of IDFA — the first stop in what is sure to be a long festival tour. Beyond that circuit, the project’s prospects are less sure,...
- 11/29/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Detailing Lithuania’s attempts to break away from the Soviet Union, from protests in 1989 to Vilnius’ Bloody Sunday in 1991, when Soviet troops attempted to stage a coup, Sergei Loznitsa became interested in the man in the midst of it all: Vytautas Landsbergis, the first Head of Parliament of Lithuania after its independence declaration.
“I started this project with a simple question: ‘Why nobody in Lithuania filmed him before?’ He is such a great man, great storyteller,” says the helmer. “Mr. Landsbergis” was crowned as best film at IDFA, with Danielius Kokanauskis awarded for editing.
Recalling his 2015 film “The Event” on the 1991 August Coup in Moscow, Loznitsa argues that he doesn’t feel like “a foreigner” in Lithuania, the first country that took serious steps to destroy the Soviet Union. But a foreigner can sometimes say things the locals cannot, he observes, also because they haven’t noticed them.
“I was born in the Soviet Union.
“I started this project with a simple question: ‘Why nobody in Lithuania filmed him before?’ He is such a great man, great storyteller,” says the helmer. “Mr. Landsbergis” was crowned as best film at IDFA, with Danielius Kokanauskis awarded for editing.
Recalling his 2015 film “The Event” on the 1991 August Coup in Moscow, Loznitsa argues that he doesn’t feel like “a foreigner” in Lithuania, the first country that took serious steps to destroy the Soviet Union. But a foreigner can sometimes say things the locals cannot, he observes, also because they haven’t noticed them.
“I was born in the Soviet Union.
- 11/28/2021
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Karim Kassem’s ‘Octopus’ won best film in the Envision Competition.
Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s Mr Landsbergis has won the €15,000 best film award of the International Competition at International Documentary Film Fesival Amsterdam (IDFA) tonight (Thursday November 25).
The four-hour documentary is about inspirational Lithuanian political leader Vytautas Landsbergis, who led the country to freedom at the end of the Soviet era.The prize comes just six months after Loznitza’s other film of 2021, Babi Yar. Context, won the the Golden Eye Award.
“It is not easy to bring history to life. It is even more difficult to make it thrilling,...
Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s Mr Landsbergis has won the €15,000 best film award of the International Competition at International Documentary Film Fesival Amsterdam (IDFA) tonight (Thursday November 25).
The four-hour documentary is about inspirational Lithuanian political leader Vytautas Landsbergis, who led the country to freedom at the end of the Soviet era.The prize comes just six months after Loznitza’s other film of 2021, Babi Yar. Context, won the the Golden Eye Award.
“It is not easy to bring history to life. It is even more difficult to make it thrilling,...
- 11/26/2021
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Karim Kassem’s ‘Octopus’ won best film in the Envision Competition.
Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitza’s Mr Landsbergis has won the €15,000 best film award of the International Competition at International Documentary Film Fesival Amsterdam (IDFA) tonight (Thursday November 25).
The four-hour documentary is about inspirational Lithuanian political leader Vytautas Landsbergis, who led the country to freedom at the end of the Soviet era.The prize comes just six months after Loznitza’s other film of 2021, Babi Yar. Context, won the the Golden Eye Award.
“It is not easy to bring history to life. It is even more difficult to make it thrilling,...
Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitza’s Mr Landsbergis has won the €15,000 best film award of the International Competition at International Documentary Film Fesival Amsterdam (IDFA) tonight (Thursday November 25).
The four-hour documentary is about inspirational Lithuanian political leader Vytautas Landsbergis, who led the country to freedom at the end of the Soviet era.The prize comes just six months after Loznitza’s other film of 2021, Babi Yar. Context, won the the Golden Eye Award.
“It is not easy to bring history to life. It is even more difficult to make it thrilling,...
- 11/25/2021
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Sergei Loznitsa’s extensive documentary “Mr. Landsbergis,” clocking in at 246 minutes and depicting Lithuania’s “singing revolution” when the country finally broke away from the Soviet Union, has won the Best Film award in the International Competition section, as well as €15,000, at documentary film festival IDFA in Amsterdam.
It marks the second 2021 release for the prolific filmmaker, who has already shown “Babi Yar. Context” at Cannes Film Festival in July. The latter film was also noticed at IDFA and granted the Beeld en Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award for Best Creative Use of Archive’s special mention.
“On every level of craft, the winning film represents a monumental achievement that fully explores the role one man, one nation, and one historical moment can play in the still-unfolding story of the global struggle for freedom and self-determination,” argued jurors Arne Birkenstock, Claire Diao, Elena Fortes, Jessica Kiang and Ryan Krivoshey, admitting that...
It marks the second 2021 release for the prolific filmmaker, who has already shown “Babi Yar. Context” at Cannes Film Festival in July. The latter film was also noticed at IDFA and granted the Beeld en Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award for Best Creative Use of Archive’s special mention.
“On every level of craft, the winning film represents a monumental achievement that fully explores the role one man, one nation, and one historical moment can play in the still-unfolding story of the global struggle for freedom and self-determination,” argued jurors Arne Birkenstock, Claire Diao, Elena Fortes, Jessica Kiang and Ryan Krivoshey, admitting that...
- 11/25/2021
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Panah Panahi’s “Hit the Road,” Laura Wandel’s “Playground” and Liz Garbus’ “Becoming Cousteau” have won the feature competition awards at the 65th BFI London Film Festival.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and BFI chief executive Ben Roberts led a judging panel to award “True Things” filmmaker Harry Wootliff the £50,000 Iwc Schaffhausen bursary, which recognizes emerging talent.
Family road trip movie “Hit the Road” won best film at the festival’s official competition.
Malgorzata Szumowska, official competition president, said: “The best film award recognises inspiring and distinctive filmmaking that captures the essence of cinema. The essence of life. At all times in cinema history, but perhaps during a pandemic especially, we are looking for ways to connect to life. Our choice is for a film that made us laugh and cry and feel alive.”
“Playground,” the harsh world of playground politics as seen through the eyes of a seven-year-old girl, won the...
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and BFI chief executive Ben Roberts led a judging panel to award “True Things” filmmaker Harry Wootliff the £50,000 Iwc Schaffhausen bursary, which recognizes emerging talent.
Family road trip movie “Hit the Road” won best film at the festival’s official competition.
Malgorzata Szumowska, official competition president, said: “The best film award recognises inspiring and distinctive filmmaking that captures the essence of cinema. The essence of life. At all times in cinema history, but perhaps during a pandemic especially, we are looking for ways to connect to life. Our choice is for a film that made us laugh and cry and feel alive.”
“Playground,” the harsh world of playground politics as seen through the eyes of a seven-year-old girl, won the...
- 10/17/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
All Eyes Off Me and Shake Your Cares Away shared the prize for best Israeli film.
Finnish director Juho Kousmanen’s Compartment No. 6 has won the best international prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival (Jff), with Hadas Ben-Aroya’s All Eyes Off Me and Tom Shoval’s Shake Your Cares Away sharing the award for best Israeli film.
The awards will be presented in-person before selected screenings tonight and tomorrow (September 2-3), with the total sum of the awards at this year’s festival approximately 1,000,000 Ils.
Compartment No. 6 premiered in competition at Cannes and is about a Finnish woman and...
Finnish director Juho Kousmanen’s Compartment No. 6 has won the best international prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival (Jff), with Hadas Ben-Aroya’s All Eyes Off Me and Tom Shoval’s Shake Your Cares Away sharing the award for best Israeli film.
The awards will be presented in-person before selected screenings tonight and tomorrow (September 2-3), with the total sum of the awards at this year’s festival approximately 1,000,000 Ils.
Compartment No. 6 premiered in competition at Cannes and is about a Finnish woman and...
- 9/2/2021
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Romanian director Radu Jude, fresh off his Golden Bear win at Berlin with “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” wouldn’t mind trying his hand at “Starship Troopers” next, he revealed during a Karlovy Vary Film Festival talk shared with Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa. Basing it “more on the book than the film,” he said, mentioning Paul Verhoeven’s take, as well as opening up about mixed reactions to his Berlinale triumph in his home country.
“I don’t mind people rejecting the film, but it’s more insidious when they offer ‘explanations.’ ‘Look at his name: Jude. Doesn’t it mean ‘Jew’ in German? Of course, it’s a prize given by Jews,’ ” he shared, referring to hateful comments about his story of a teacher facing a scandal after her sex tape goes viral.
“I’ve made films dealing with Romania’s participation in the Holocaust and the enslavement of the Roma people.
“I don’t mind people rejecting the film, but it’s more insidious when they offer ‘explanations.’ ‘Look at his name: Jude. Doesn’t it mean ‘Jew’ in German? Of course, it’s a prize given by Jews,’ ” he shared, referring to hateful comments about his story of a teacher facing a scandal after her sex tape goes viral.
“I’ve made films dealing with Romania’s participation in the Holocaust and the enslavement of the Roma people.
- 8/27/2021
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Films include Emerald Fennell’s ‘Promising Young Woman’ and Blerta Basholli’s ‘Hive’.
More films than ever before are eligible for this year’s European Film Awards’ feature film and documentary film selection, with 40 feature films and 15 documentary films, and further feature film titles to be revealed in September.
Titles in the feature film selection include Blerta Basholli’s Sundance hit Hive and Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. The latter is eligible despite being listed as a film of US origin. The European Film Academy (Efa) told Screen this was because the film reaches the number of points in...
More films than ever before are eligible for this year’s European Film Awards’ feature film and documentary film selection, with 40 feature films and 15 documentary films, and further feature film titles to be revealed in September.
Titles in the feature film selection include Blerta Basholli’s Sundance hit Hive and Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. The latter is eligible despite being listed as a film of US origin. The European Film Academy (Efa) told Screen this was because the film reaches the number of points in...
- 8/24/2021
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Sergei Loznitsa’s remarkable Babi Yar. Context, which screened this week at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, is a work of resurrection which seems to collapse time. The film was produced for the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and consists entirely of archival footage surrounding the tragedy. Official documentation, mixed in with private footage, shot by soldiers and civilians, chronicle the events following the German occupation of Ukraine.
Babi Yar is the name of a ravine in Kiev, where on September 29 and 30, 1941, 33771 Jews were shot dead by Sonderkommando 4a of the Einsatzgruppe C, assisted by two battalions of the Police Regiment South and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. The march of the entire Jewish population - everyone from old people to babies - heading to the ravine, took place in broad daylight and was witnessed by thousands. No footage remains and it was in the perpetrators’ interest to let...
Babi Yar is the name of a ravine in Kiev, where on September 29 and 30, 1941, 33771 Jews were shot dead by Sonderkommando 4a of the Einsatzgruppe C, assisted by two battalions of the Police Regiment South and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. The march of the entire Jewish population - everyone from old people to babies - heading to the ravine, took place in broad daylight and was witnessed by thousands. No footage remains and it was in the perpetrators’ interest to let...
- 7/16/2021
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Cannes is back in full force with the announcement of the Official Selection for the film festival’s 74th edition. Taking place in July after having been originally scheduled for May, Cannes is returning with an in-person event after the pandemic forced the festival to cancel in 2020. Spike Lee, who was supposed to head the jury and premiere his “Da 5 Bloods” out of competition last year, is returning to Cannes 2021 as jury president. Films such as Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” Leos Carax’s “Annette,” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” were all supposed to premiere at Cannes 2020 but are now confirmed for Cannes 2021 after waiting a year to be unveiled to the world.
Given this is the first Cannes in the Covid pandemic era, there are as many questions about the event’s safety protocols as there are about the lineup. Cannes general delegate Thierry Frémaux told IndieWire...
Given this is the first Cannes in the Covid pandemic era, there are as many questions about the event’s safety protocols as there are about the lineup. Cannes general delegate Thierry Frémaux told IndieWire...
- 6/3/2021
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
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