Sergei Loznitsa / Netherlands, Ukraine / 2022 / 106′ / Russian, Ukrainian, German | Italian subtitles

The Kiev Trial, also known as the “Kiev Nuremberg,” took place in January 1946 in the Soviet Union and was one of the first postwar trials to convict German Nazis and their collaborators. Fifteen criminals, guilty of atrocities that were later identified by the Nuremberg trials as crimes against humanity, faced justice in the case n. 1679 On the atrocities committed by fascist invaders on the territory of the RSS Ukraine.
Using unique and previously unseen archival material, Sergei Loznitsa reconstructs key moments of the trial, including speeches by the defendants and testimony from witnesses, including Auschwitz survivors and Babi Yar. The film lays bare the “banality of evil” and is extremely relevant today as the Ukrainian people are again subjected to the violence of barbarian invaders.

Screenplay Sergei Loznitsa
Editing Sergei Loznitsa, Tomasz Wolski, Danielius Kokanauskis
Sound design Vladimir Golovnitski
Producers Sergei Loznitsa, Maria Choustova
Production ATOMS & VOID

Sergei Loznitsa
Sergei Loznitsa was born on September 5, 1964. He grew up in Kiev, Ukraine, and graduated from Kiev Polytechnic University in 1987 with a degree in Applied Mathematics. From 1987 to 1991, Sergei worked as a scientist at the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, specializing in artificial intelligence research. In 1997 he graduated from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, where he studied film directing. Sergei Loznitsa has been making films since 1996 and to date has directed 25 award-winning documentaries and 4 fiction films.
Loznitsa’s film debut, My joy (2010), premiered in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival and was followed by the film In the fog (2012), which received the FIPRESCI award at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. In 2017, he presented his third film A gentle creature in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2018, Loznitsa received the Best Director award in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival for his fourth feature film, Donbass. In 2013, he founded a film production company, Atoms & void.
The documentary Maidan (2014), a chronicle of the Ukrainian revolution, had its world premiere in a Special Séance at the Cannes Film Festival. His subsequent feature-length documentaries, The event (2015), Austerlitz (2016), The trial (2018) and State funeral (2019) were presented at special screenings at the Venice Film Festival. In 2021 Sergei received a Special Jury Prize of the L’Oeil D’Or Award in Cannes for his film Babi Yar. Context. Sergei Loznitsa continues to work on documentary and fiction projects.