Sergei Loznitsa / Germany, Netherlands / 2022 / 110’ / English, German | Italian and English Subtitles

Inspired by W. B. Sebald’s book and based on WWII archive footage, the film puts forward the question: is it morally acceptable to use civilian population as a means of war? Is it possible to justify mass destruction for the sake of higher “moral” ideals? The question remains as relevant today, as it was 80 years ago, and its urgency is tragically manifested in current political events.

Screenplay Sergei Loznitsa
Editing Danielius Kokanauskis
Music Christiaan Verbeek
Sound design and mix Vladimir Golovnitski
Production LOOKSfilm, Studio Uljana Kim, ATOMS&VOID, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandeburg, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk
Producer Regina Bouchehri, Gunnar Dedio, Uljana Kim, Sergei Loznitsa, Maria Choustova
Executive producer Nathalie Dietrich, Günter Thimm (RBB)
Archive Producer Manuel Heller

Sergei Loznitsa

Sergei Loznitsa was born in 1964 in Belarus. He worked as a scientist at the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics and in 1997 he graduated in feature filmmaking from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Loznitsa has directed 23 award-winning documentaries and 4 fiction films. His feature debut My Joypremiered in the main competition at Cannes Film Festival and was followed by In The FogIn The Fog, awarded the FIPRESCI prize at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. In 2017, he presented his third feature A Gentle Creature in Cannes. In 2018, he received the prize for Best Directing of Un Certain Regard section in Cannes for the feature film, Donbass. His feature-length documentary Maidan premiered at a Séance Special in Cannes. The subsequent feature length documentaries, The Event, Austerlitz, The Trial e State Funeralwere presented at the Special Screenings in Venice. In 2021 he received a Special Jury Prize of the L’Oeil D’Or Award in Cannes for Baby Yar. Context.