Sergei Loznitsa

Sergei Loznitsa (2010)

Sergei Loznitsa ( Russian Сергей Владимирович Лозница / Sergei Vladimirovich Losniza ; Belarusian Сяргей Уладзіміравіч Лазніца / Syarhey Uladsimirawitsch Lasniza ; Ukrainian Сергій Володимирович Лозниця / Serhiy Wolodymyrowytsch Losnyzja * 5. September 1964 in Baranovichi , Brest Region , Byelorussian SSR , Soviet Union ) is a Ukrainian film director and screenwriter. He gained notoriety from the late 1990s as a director of documentaries about the Russian province and Soviet history .

While his works were initially characterized by ironic and conciliatory cheerfulness, they are now received as deeply sad parables with regard to the moral state of Russia . His documentary Blokada won the most important Russian film award, Nika, in 2005. Loznitsa has lived with his family in Germany since 2001 .

Life

Education and first documentaries

Sergei Loznitsa was born in the Belarusian SSR. His family later moved to Kiev , where he attended high school until 1981. Loznitsa then switched to the Kiev Polytechnic Institute (KPI) and studied applied mathematics . In 1987 he finished his studies and worked for the next four years as a qualified engineer at the Institute for Cybernetics in Kiev. At the same time he worked as a translator for Japanese and began to get enthusiastic about the film.

In 1991 Loznitsa moved to Moscow and trained as a film director at the Russian state film school WGIK . His professor was the Georgian director and screenwriter Nana Jordschadze . During his studies with the collaboration of Marat Magambetow, the first directorial work Sewodnja my postroim dom (1996; German: “Today we are building a house”) was created. The 28-minute documentary on the completion of a house in Russia earned him numerous awards at international film festivals one, including the Golden Dove and the MDR Film Prize of the DOK Leipzig and Documentary prices of the International Film Festival Augsburg and the film festivals of Potsdam .

After completing his film studies in 1997, Loznitsa and Magambetow were able to build on their previous success with Schisn, ossen (1999; German: "Leben, Herbst"). The documentary film about the life of an aged village community near Smolensk received awards at the Hamburg Film Festival and the Berlin Ethnographic Film Festival . Thereupon Loznitsa made a name for himself as the sole responsible documentary film director and in his subsequent works portrayed the waiting room of a Russian train station ( Polustanok , 2000; German: "Haltpunkt"), a community of mentally ill people ( Posselenije , 2001; German: "The settlement") , the inhabitants of the Russian province ( Portret , 2002; German: "The Portrait"), a bus stop in a small Russian town ( Paysage , 2002; German: "Landscape") or the everyday work in a factory ( Fabrika , 2004; German : "The factory"). All of these award-winning films, for which he usually did without his own commentary or background music, were made at the Documentary Film Studio (SPSDF) in Saint Petersburg .

Focus on Soviet history and first feature films

After Loznitsa had repeatedly taken up the Russian province and its inhabitants as a topic, he devoted himself to the history of the Soviet Union in his subsequent works using original archive material . Blokada (2005; Eng .: "Blockade") tells of the blockade of Leningrad in World War II and was awarded the Russian Nika . In Predstawlenije (2008; German: "The Presentation"), Loznitsa used Soviet provincial newsreels from the 1950s and early 1960s. He assembled these with amateur recordings and underlaid the images with new sound. “I wanted to allow two different approaches to collide in a film: the neutral one, in which the author of the film leaves it to the viewer to independently develop an attitude towards what he sees, and the propagandistic one, in which this attitude is given to the viewer is imposed by the author, ” said the Ukrainian filmmaker about Predstawlenije , who won him a prize at the Krakow Film Festival for the fourth time since 1997 .

In 2000, Sergei Loznitsa took part in the Berlin Nipkow program, a scholarship program for film and television professionals. A year later he moved to Germany with his family. After eight short and three full-length documentaries, he presented his first feature film in 2010 with Mein Glück (English-language title: My Joy ). The German co-production, supported by ZDF and ARTE among others , focuses on a truck driver (played by Wiktor Nemez) who is subjected to violence and arbitrariness in Eastern Europe. This then becomes a criminal himself. In the same year, Mein Glück was the first Ukrainian entry to receive an invitation to compete at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival , but remained unprofitable. The film-dienst criticized the fact that Loznitsa's end-time parable, due to the “permanent recurrence of injustice and arbitrariness” , seemed too redundant and served western cliché images of the Russian province.

While Loznitsa had already faded the current plot back to the past of the Second World War twice in Mein Glück , in 2012 he completed his second feature film, W tumane ( In the Fog ), which is entirely set in the Second World War. The German co-production, again realized in cooperation with ZDF and ARTE, is based on a novel by Wassil Bykau (1924–2003) and takes place at the time of the German-Soviet War in 1942. The story is about a railroad worker (portrayed by Vladimir Swirski), who is wrongly suspected of collaborating with the Germans. Two partisans are then sent out to check his guilt or innocence. In 2012, W tumane brought Loznitsa his second invitation to the competition at the 65th Cannes Film Festival .

Filmography (selection)

Documentaries

• 1997: Sewodnja my postroim dom ( Сегодня мы построим дом ) (short film)
• 1999: Schisn, ossen ( Жизнь, осень ) (short film)
• 2000: Polustanok ( Полустанок ) (short film)
• 2001: Posselenije ( Поселение )
• 2002: Portret ( Портрет ) (short film)
• 2003: Paysage ( Пейзаж )
• 2004: Fabrika ( Фабрика ) (short film)
• 2005: Blokada ( Блокада ) (short film)
• 2006: Artel ( Артель ) (short film)
• 2008: Predstawlenije ( Представление )
• 2008: Severny swet / Northern Lights ( Северный свет ) (short film)
• 2014: Maidan
• 2015: The Old Jewish Cemetery (short film)
• 2015: Sobytie
• 2016: Austerlitz
• 2018: The 'Pobedy | Victory Day ( Victory Day , documented on May 9, 2017 when the Soviet Memorial in Treptow Park)
• 2018: Trial ( Процесс )

Feature films

• 2010: My luck / Stschastje mojo (Счастье моё)
• 2012: In the fog / W tumane (В тумане)
• 2014: Ponts de Sarajevo
• 2017: The gentle one (Кроткая)
• 2018: Donbass (Донбас)

Awards (selection)

Hamburg Film Festival

• 2000: Jury award for Schisn, osen

Film Festival "Golden Apricot"

• 2010: Silver Apricot (special price) for Mein Glück

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

• 2003: Honorable Mention for Portret
• 2007: Best documentary (under 30 minutes) for Artel

International Short Film Festival Oberhausen

• 2003: Grand Prize for Portret

International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (DOK)

• 1996: Golden Dove and MDR Film Prize for Sewodnja my postroim dom
• 2000: Silver dove for Polustanok
• 2001: Silver dove for Posselenije
• 2002: Silver dove for Portret

Krakowski Festiwal Filmowy

• 1997: Bronze dragon for Sewodnja my postroim dom
• 2001: Honorable Mention for Polustanok
• 2006: Golden Dragon for Blokada
• 2008: Golden Horn for Predstawlenije

Nika

• 2005: Best Documentary for Blokada

Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival

• 2015: International Nuremberg Film Prize for Human Rights for Maidan

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

• 2010: Best film for Mein Glück

literature

• Without a solution. Sergej Loznitsa on "Mein Glück" (conversation with Hans-Joachim Schlegel), in: "Film-Dienst" 2011, issue 4
• Hans-Joachim Schlegel: Hellish provincial idyll. Sergej Loznitsa's "Mein Glück", in: "Berliner Zeitung", February 20, 2011
• Hans-Joachim Schlegel: The executioner on my back. Sergej Loznitsa's "Im Nebel", in: "Berliner Zeitung", November 15, 2012

Web links

Commons : Sergei Loznitsa  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website (German, English, Russian)
• Profile at russiancinema.ru (Russian)
• Sergei Loznitsa in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Schenk, Ralf: My luck . In: film-dienst 3/2011 (accessed via Munzinger Online .)
2. ↑ The idea . In: Welt am Sonntag, November 22, 2009, No. 47, p. 76.
3. ^ Exhibition program: Documentary "Revue" by Sergei Loznitsa at rostocker-friedensbuendnis.de (accessed on April 18, 2010).
4. ↑ Hurray, we are still alive! But the German contribution in Cannes at n-tv.de, April 15, 2010 (accessed on April 19, 2010).
5. ↑ Official press kit of the Film Festival of Cannes 2010 (English; accessed on 20 April 2010; PDF; 255 KB).
6. ↑ Summary of the action ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at majade.de (accessed April 15, 2010). 
7. ↑ Description at loznitsa.com (accessed on April 26, 2012).