It’s a film about the Lenin-Stalin era, but it also [...]

Donbass is a region in Eastern Ukraine that’s occupied by various criminal gangs, the Ukrainian regular army, supported by volunteers, and separatist gangs, supported by Russian troops. In "Donbass," the film, the events that are richly-depicted by Ukraine-born Sergei Loznitsa (“Maidan,” “Austerlitz,” “My joy”) in stunningly-realistic fashion bring the point across, with great clarity, that this war didn’t just happen in the open fields. It happened in the homes, the bunkers, the government offices, the food drives of this community. In fighting this proxy war through the separatist gangs

There’s something mildly sadistic about a master-filmmaker botching his own, brilliant, film with an underwhelming ending, such as that which Sergei Loznitsa did with “Krotkaya” (“A gentle creature” in the Russian original). A woman whose husband is in prison gets the care package she’d sent to her husband returned to her. A delivery attempt was made, person is no longer at that jail cell. In want of news she sets off

Two directors from Russia are bringing their films to Cannes this year. One, Andrey Zvyagintsev, will be competing, while the other, Sergei Loznitsa, will get to show his film in one of the special, non-competitive sections. One of the films that’s being talked about in anticipation of the Cannes Festival's launch next week year is Zviagintsev’s

Russian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa will be at the Cannes Festival again this year, competing for the Palme D'Or. This time he presents "In the Fog," a feature film adaptation of a novel set in the darkest recesses of World War II, when Russians accused each other of fomenting with the enemy and soldiers turned on civilians. The memory of war is a difficult burden to bear but the need to memorialize a tragedy is as vital today as it was at the outset