Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa will be the Special Guest at the 57th edition of documentary film festival Visions du Réel, which runs April 17-26 in Nyon, Switzerland.
Loznitsa will conduct a masterclass on April 18, and present a selected retrospective of his documentary work.
Emilie Bujès, artistic director of Visions du Réel, said Loznitsa was “a master of contemporary montage cinema.”
She added, “His work notably includes the meticulous re-examination of archives highlighting state violence and the stutter of history, as the images’ subtext is revealed with force and perseverance.
“In both his documentary and fiction works, Sergei Loznitsa retraces decisive moments in 20th-century history and questions the structures of power and memory through cinema of great rigor and precision.”
Among the films screening are three that look at the political situation in Ukraine over recent decades.
In “Maidan” (2014), which was made in just four months and then presented in a special screening at Cannes, Loznitsa chronicles the demonstrations that triggered the Ukrainian Revolution.
Also playing is “Donbass” (2018), whose script was based on amateur videos found on YouTube. The filmmaker depicts the takeover of the Donbass region by Russian-speaking militias who entered into conflict with the Ukrainian army.
In “The Invasion” (2024), Loznitsa continues his Ukrainian chronicles with a film about his country’s struggle against the Russian invasion. Filmed over a period of two years, the film depicts the lives of civilians across the Ukrainian territory and captures the population’s resilience in the face of the Russian war of aggression.
Also screening is “Austerlitz” (2016), which examines the trivialization of Holocaust memory and uses lingering black-and-white static shots to capture tourists visiting a former concentration camp turned memorial.
Other films question “the processes that shape the creation of post-communist collective memory,” the festival said. “Blockade” (2005) was assembled solely from footage shot during the Siege of Leningrad, which ran from Sept. 8, 1941 to Jan. 27, 1944, and leaves the war off-screen, focusing on the day-to-day survival of the population. “The Event” (2015) revisits the August 1991 coup in Moscow. “Babi Yar. Context” (2021) unfolds without narration, recounting the largest massacre of Jews in World War II, which took place near Kyiv. The film was awarded L’Œil d’or’s Special Jury Prize at Cannes.
variety.com
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