FLEFF Programs Ukrainian Filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa's Most Recent Films at Cinemapolis

By Patricia Zimmermann, March 30, 2023

FLEFF Cinemapolis Screenings Feature Recent Work of Sergei Loznitsa

To honor the one-year anniversary of the Russian Ukraine War, the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) has programmed two of the most recent documentaries by renowned Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa: Babi Yar. Context (2021) andThe Natural History of Destruction (2022). The screenings at FLEFF represent some of the very few limited screenings that these important and award-winning films will have in the United States.

There will be two screenings of each film at Cinemapolis between March 24-April 9, 2023, with introductions by Ithaca College faculty experts. The dates and times will be announced soon. These are ticketed events. More on FLEFF programming HERE.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION (2022)

The Natural History of Destruction
Directed by Sergei Loznitsa
(Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands,Ukraine, 2022, 112 minutes)

In a quaint peaceful European town, horse-drawn carriages clip-clop along the cobblestone streets, while children enjoy snacks by a Gothic fountain, and an old man plays a folk song on a clarinet. Only later does it become clear that the picturesque scene is one from Nazi Germany—and soon bombs begin raining down, their explosions a flurry of flashes against the night sky.

Inspired by W.G. Sebald’s treatise and created entirely from archival footage, The Natural History of Destruction mounts a harrowing critique of the killing of civilian populations during war-time—as seen in the devastation unleashed across both England and Germany during WWII. Ukrainian-raised Cannes-winning and prolific filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa (Maidan, Donbass) has created a brilliantly edited, immaculately restored, and exquisitely sound-designed clarion call, as tragically urgent today as the missiles continue to fall.

For more on The Natural History of Destruction, be sure to read film scholar Scott MacDonald’s piece for THE EDGE:

BABI YAR. CONTEXT (2021)

Babi Yar. Context
Directed by Sergei Loznitsa
(Netherlands, Ukraine, 2021, 120 min)

(On September 29-30,1941, 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.

The film reconstructs and visualizes the historical context of this tragedy through archive footage documenting the German occupation of Ukraine and the subsequent decade. When memory turns into oblivion, when the past overshadows the future, it is the voice of cinema that articulates the truth.

ABOUT SERGEI LOZNITSA

In 1981 Sergei Loznitsa was admitted to Kiev Polytechnic Institute in applied mathematics and control systems. In 1987 he graduated with a degree in engineering and mathematics. From 1987 through 1991 Sergei Loznitsa was employed as a scientist at the Institute of Cybernetics. He was involved in the development of expert systems, artificial intelligence and decision-making processes. Loznitsa also worked as a translator from Japanese.

During that time he developed a strong interest in cinematography and in 1991 he applied to the Russian State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. After passing a very vigorous selection process, Sergei Loznitsa was admitted to the Institute. He studied in the studio of Nana Dzhordzhadze. In 1997 he graduated with honors with the major in movie production and direction.

Sergei Loznitsa has directed 22 internationally acclaimed documentary and 4 feature films. He is considered one of the leading figures in European and Eastern European cinema.

His vast body of films include My Joy (Schastye moe, 2010); In the Fog (V tumane, 2012); Maidan (2014), dedicated to the Ukrainian Revolution;The Event (Sobytie. 2015)) that revisits the dramatic moments of August 1991 in the USSR; Austerlitz (2016) that observes visitors to memorial sites on the territory of former concentration camps in Germany; A Gentle Creature (Krotkaya, 2017); Victory Day (2018 filmed at Treptower Park in Berlin, a memorial park dedicated to the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi-Germany; Donbass (2018); The Trial (Process, 2018)) used archival chronicles depicting the first of the Moscow Trials from 1930; State Funeral (2019), presents the funeral of Joseph Stalin as the culmination of the dictator’s personality cult.

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