Maidan

Maïdan

DIRECTOR: Sergei Loznitsa   COUNTRIES: Ukraine, Netherlands YEAR: 2014   LANGUAGE(S): Ukrainian  SUBTITLES: English  RUNNING TIME: 133 min  

SECTION: International Competition 2015

SYNOPSIS

No other movement has changed Europe’s recent history so effectively as the demonstrations on the Maidan. The award-winning Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa (BLOKADA (1999), IN THE FOG (2007), MY JOY (2010)) went out onto the square in February 2014 with his camera and observed the final weeks of the demonstrations. The result is a fantastic portrait about what happened on the Maidan, but also about the general dynamics of such revolutions.

What was incredible about the events on the Maidan were the images: Waving flags on burning barricades, single unarmed people who stood up against an anonymous superior mass of soldiers. Pictures that were reminiscent of paintings of the French Revolution.

But Sergei Loznitsa was looking for something else. He observed the developments on the Maidan very precisely. What he could hear and see, such as loudspeaker announcements, soup kitchens for the demonstrators, masses singing the Ukrainian national anthem, and even a policeman being hit and falling from a roof. The revolutionary images are put into such context that they are devoid of pathos. Loznitsa creates a new, fascinating form of writing history: The film is about processes, dynamics and the attempt to observe historical developments without interpreting them ideologically.

SERGEI LOZNITSA
Sergei Loznitsa was born in 1964. He grew up in Kiev, and in 1987 graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic with a degree in Applied Mathematics. In 1987 – 1991 he worked as a scientist at the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, specializing in artificial intelligence research. He also worked as a translator from Japanese. In 1997 he graduated from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), where he studied feature film making. Sergei has been directing 14 documentary films since 1996, all of which received numerous international awards. Sergei Loznitsa’s montage film BLOCKADE (2005) is based on the archive footage of besieged Leningrad. Loznitsa’s feature debut MY JOY premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 and was followed by IN THE FOG which premiered in the competition of the 65th Cannes Film Festival in May 2012 and received the FIPRESCI award.

FILMOGRAPHY

Portret (2002), Blokada (2005), Artel (2006), Mein Glück (2010), Im Nebel (2012), Maidan (2014)

PRODUCER: Maria Choustova-Baker, Sergei Loznitsa   CAMERA: Sergei Loznitsa, Sergiy Stefan Stetsenko   EDITORS: Sergei Loznitsa, Danielius Kokanauskis

PRODUCTION: ATOMS&VOID   WORLD SALES: ATOMS&VOID   GERMAN DISTRIBUTOR: Grandfilm