Progress Film, the historic distributor established in 1950 to handle the release of films produced by communist East Germany’s state-owned film studio, has announced plans to relaunch theatrical distribution and international sales.
The company has also acquired Sergei Loznitsa’s “The Natural History of Destruction,” which will have its world premiere as a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Progress is handling world sales as well as distribution in Germany, where it’s planning a theatrical release.
Based on WWII archive footage, “The Natural History of Destruction” puts forward the questions: Is it morally acceptable to use civilian populations as a means of war, and is it possible to justify mass destruction for the sake of higher “moral” ideals? Those questions remain as relevant today as they were 80 years ago, becoming ever more urgent amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
Progress Film was founded in East Berlin in...
The company has also acquired Sergei Loznitsa’s “The Natural History of Destruction,” which will have its world premiere as a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Progress is handling world sales as well as distribution in Germany, where it’s planning a theatrical release.
Based on WWII archive footage, “The Natural History of Destruction” puts forward the questions: Is it morally acceptable to use civilian populations as a means of war, and is it possible to justify mass destruction for the sake of higher “moral” ideals? Those questions remain as relevant today as they were 80 years ago, becoming ever more urgent amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
Progress Film was founded in East Berlin in...
- 5/5/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Sergei Loznitsa’s Donbass, the Ukrainian filmmaker’s movie that made the festival rounds in the now-seemingly ancient year of 2018, kicks off with two different vignettes. We watch an older woman getting rings put around her eyes in a makeup trailer — she’s part of a “cast” of “everyday people,” along with fake cops and corpses, that will help sell the aftermath of a nationalist “attack” in the name of pro-Russia TV propaganda. The year is 2014; the place is, per an intertitle, “Occupied Ukraine.” An assistant leads her and her...
- 4/10/2022
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Organizers at the Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival (Cph:dox), which is going ahead in-person for the first time in three years, are taking a stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine with a dedicated program of seven specially curated films.
Spirits may be high in the Danish capital at the prospect of finally having a live event after two editions that were pushed online due to the Covid-19 pandemic but, as the fest’s artistic director Niklas Engstrøm stressed, “All our thoughts go to Ukraine and the many refugees who are currently being forced to leave their homeland.”
As the event’s programmer, Mads Mikkelsen, explained to Variety, organizers had already put together a selection of films from or about Ukraine when they closed the program in late January. “But, of course, everything changed on February 24 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Up to the last minute, we added more films...
Spirits may be high in the Danish capital at the prospect of finally having a live event after two editions that were pushed online due to the Covid-19 pandemic but, as the fest’s artistic director Niklas Engstrøm stressed, “All our thoughts go to Ukraine and the many refugees who are currently being forced to leave their homeland.”
As the event’s programmer, Mads Mikkelsen, explained to Variety, organizers had already put together a selection of films from or about Ukraine when they closed the program in late January. “But, of course, everything changed on February 24 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Up to the last minute, we added more films...
- 3/22/2022
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
Documentary festival expands programme in solidary with war-torn country.
Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Cph:dox) has made three late additions of Ukrainian films to its line-up, as a mark of solidarity with the war-torn nation.
Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan, Iryna Tsilyk’s The Earth Is Blue As An Orange and Alina Gorlova’s This Rain Will Never Stop have been added to the programme of the festival, which will return as an in-person event from March 23 to April 3.
It brings Cph:dox’s dedicated programme of films that focus on Ukraine to seven, having previously selected Olha Zhurba’s Outside, Simon Lereng Wilmont...
Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Cph:dox) has made three late additions of Ukrainian films to its line-up, as a mark of solidarity with the war-torn nation.
Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan, Iryna Tsilyk’s The Earth Is Blue As An Orange and Alina Gorlova’s This Rain Will Never Stop have been added to the programme of the festival, which will return as an in-person event from March 23 to April 3.
It brings Cph:dox’s dedicated programme of films that focus on Ukraine to seven, having previously selected Olha Zhurba’s Outside, Simon Lereng Wilmont...
- 3/16/2022
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Sergei Loznitsa's The Event (2015), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from August 4 - September 3, 2017 as a Special Discovery. “Questions are only dangerous when you answer them.”—Toby Esterhase, Smiley’s People“Resign! Resign! Resign!”—St. Petersburg crowd, 19 August 199119 August 1991. Sergei Loznitsa is packing his bags in Kiev: having recently left his job at the city’s Institute of Cybernetics, he is about to enroll at Moscow Film School. The phone rings; it’s a friend. Loznitsa, at his pal’s suggestion, turns on the television. All four state channels, interspersed with news flashes, are broadcasting the same thing: Swan Lake—on repeat. Updates come through haphazardly. In Moscow, there are tanks in the streets. By noon, there is something resembling a clearer picture: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, on vacation in the Crimea, has taken ill. A state of emergency is declared. Loznitsa walks...
- 8/4/2017
- MUBI
Deftly weaving between politically ambitious documentary projects and brooding, chunky dramas exploring the malignant side of Russian society, Ukraianian director Sergei Loznitsa follows Austerlitz, last year’s documentary on concentration camp tourism, with the fictional A Gentle Creature, an impressively morose, dense, and totalizing immersion into the dehumanizing absurdity of the Russian prison system. But in fact we don’t see anything of the inside of a prison in A Gentle Creature, for while the goal of the unnamed, middle-aged heroine (Vasilina Makovtseva) is to visit her incarcerated husband—a visit inspired mainly because a care package was sent back to her with no explanation as to its rejection—her fruitless journey to the prison town is a Hogarthian roundelay of indifferent, dismissive or abusive personnel and exploitative locals. Makovtseva’s maze-like path through a social microcosm (and ecosystem) of functionaries, leeches and profiteers is an ordeal that begins about...
- 5/29/2017
- MUBI
Mubi's retrospective Film Is a Theorem: The Documentaries of Sergei Loznitsa is showing January 16 - March 15, 2017 in the United Kingdom and many other countries around the world.Landscape“Film is a theorem that has to arrive at a final point.”—Sergei Loznitsa It’s something of a critical cliché to say that a film or filmmaker is fixated on the notion of time; but there aren’t many contemporary filmmakers who fulfill that description as well as Belarus-born director Sergei Loznitsa. Although best known for his recent work—a trio of documentaries, Maidan (2014), The Event (2015) and Austerlitz (2016)—and a brief foray into fiction—My Joy (2010) and In the Fog (2012)—Loznitsa first started out with a string of documentary features and shorts, five of which are part of Mubi’s ongoing retrospective: “Film is a Theorem: The Documentaries of Sergei Loznitsa.” With a methodical, almost scientific rigor (indicative of Loznitsa’s...
- 2/26/2017
- MUBI
Exploring how Russia’s involvement in Ukraine has affected his own family, Vitaly Mansky’s documentary shows the pain of loyalties tested
Vitaly Mansky’s gloomy, sombre and garrulous film is a portrait of his extended family and of the divided nation of Ukraine: it makes an intriguing companion piece to Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan, about the revolution of 2014. Close Relations is about relations growing further apart: the divided loyalties that have come painfully to the surface in Ukraine. It tracks the period from May 2014 – just after the anti-Russian Euromaidan moment – to May 2015, when Ukraine finds itself in an eastern war with pro-Russian secessionist rebels, and also finds that Russia has annexed Crimea.
Mansky is Ukrainian born but a Russian resident since his student days in the Soviet era and he feels a strong sense that Russian sympathies are an authentic, longstanding Ukrainian tradition. It is almost the equivalent of unionism in Northern Ireland,...
Vitaly Mansky’s gloomy, sombre and garrulous film is a portrait of his extended family and of the divided nation of Ukraine: it makes an intriguing companion piece to Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan, about the revolution of 2014. Close Relations is about relations growing further apart: the divided loyalties that have come painfully to the surface in Ukraine. It tracks the period from May 2014 – just after the anti-Russian Euromaidan moment – to May 2015, when Ukraine finds itself in an eastern war with pro-Russian secessionist rebels, and also finds that Russia has annexed Crimea.
Mansky is Ukrainian born but a Russian resident since his student days in the Soviet era and he feels a strong sense that Russian sympathies are an authentic, longstanding Ukrainian tradition. It is almost the equivalent of unionism in Northern Ireland,...
- 1/19/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I WaitDear Fern,I'm so glad we could share the sheer exuberant pleasure of Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids on an IMAX screen that gave J.T. the 30 foot high stature of a god: eat your heart out, Leni Riefenstahl! As you note, this infectious concert documentary by Jonathan Demme resoundingly describes Timberlake's appeal in thundering audio-visual terms: boyish charisma, guileless performing pleasure, and a remarkable sharing of his musical credit (so much of it studio-finessed, optimized of appropriation of other music and styles) with a veritable community of producers, musicians, backing vocalists, dancers and more. There's one incredible shot (among many) in this beautiful film of the entire collection of performers playing a song that's frankly mediocre—but the camera tracks along the whole band on stage, Timberlake one of many, all of whose smiles are genuine, all who sing along...
- 9/19/2016
- MUBI
With the jury winners announced this past weekend (see at the bottom), the 73rd Venice International Film Festival has now come to an end. As always, it was a strong kick-off to the fall festivals, with some premieres of dramas that we’ll see over the next few months, as well as a great many that won’t arrive until next year (or perhaps later, pending distribution). We’ve wrapped up the festival by selecting our 9 favorite films, followed by our complete coverage. Check out everything below and let us know what you’re most looking forward to.
Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa)
Having experimented with feature-length fiction films, shorts, and archival-footage documentaries in the course of his career, Sergei Loznitsa’s output since his 2014 Ukrainian crisis documentary Maidan has both garnered him greater acclaim than before and zeroed in on cinema as a collectively generated form. – Tommaso T. (full review)
Hacksaw Ridge...
Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa)
Having experimented with feature-length fiction films, shorts, and archival-footage documentaries in the course of his career, Sergei Loznitsa’s output since his 2014 Ukrainian crisis documentary Maidan has both garnered him greater acclaim than before and zeroed in on cinema as a collectively generated form. – Tommaso T. (full review)
Hacksaw Ridge...
- 9/12/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Deals in Germany, Latin American, more for Austerlitz director’s next film; producers secure France deal.
Wild Bunch has concluded a string of pre-sales on Sergei Loznitsa’s new drama A Gentle Creature, which recently wrapped shoot in Eastern Europe and is set for a 2017 release.
The feature — loosely inspired by a Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1876 short story (which has already prompted films by Alexander Borisov, Robert Bresson, Mani Kaul and Raphael Nadjari) - charts the story of a woman who travels from the outskirts of Russia to a mysterious prison in order to find out what has happened to her incarcerated husband.
Grand Film, which previously bought the director’s documentaries Maidan and The Event, will release in Germany, Palmera International will distribute in Latin and Central America, Fabula in Turkey, Against Gravity in Poland, Seven in Greece, Alambique in Portugal, McF in former Yugoslavia, Vertigo in Hungary, Film Europe in Czech Republic and Encore for Airlines...
Wild Bunch has concluded a string of pre-sales on Sergei Loznitsa’s new drama A Gentle Creature, which recently wrapped shoot in Eastern Europe and is set for a 2017 release.
The feature — loosely inspired by a Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1876 short story (which has already prompted films by Alexander Borisov, Robert Bresson, Mani Kaul and Raphael Nadjari) - charts the story of a woman who travels from the outskirts of Russia to a mysterious prison in order to find out what has happened to her incarcerated husband.
Grand Film, which previously bought the director’s documentaries Maidan and The Event, will release in Germany, Palmera International will distribute in Latin and Central America, Fabula in Turkey, Against Gravity in Poland, Seven in Greece, Alambique in Portugal, McF in former Yugoslavia, Vertigo in Hungary, Film Europe in Czech Republic and Encore for Airlines...
- 9/12/2016
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Having experimented with feature-length fiction films, shorts, and archival-footage documentaries in the course of his career, Sergei Loznitsa’s output since his 2014 Ukrainian crisis documentary Maidan has both garnered him greater acclaim than before and zeroed in on cinema as a collectively generated form.
In Maidan, Loznitsa’s camera is on the ground, observing the crowd gathering in Kiev for what was initially a pacific protest against President Yanukovych. Watching the film’s early scenes and knowing what’s going to happen later gives a devastating power to those hopeful, spontaneous short moments around the square. You are watching a revolution while it’s happening, but it’s that plurality, that mixture of faces passing by, that prompts you to assemble it in your mind. Similarly, 2015’s The Event captures the essence of uncertainty in a crowd as history is unfolding — or is it? Loznitsa’s films are magnetically attracted to collectivity,...
In Maidan, Loznitsa’s camera is on the ground, observing the crowd gathering in Kiev for what was initially a pacific protest against President Yanukovych. Watching the film’s early scenes and knowing what’s going to happen later gives a devastating power to those hopeful, spontaneous short moments around the square. You are watching a revolution while it’s happening, but it’s that plurality, that mixture of faces passing by, that prompts you to assemble it in your mind. Similarly, 2015’s The Event captures the essence of uncertainty in a crowd as history is unfolding — or is it? Loznitsa’s films are magnetically attracted to collectivity,...
- 9/8/2016
- by Tommaso Tocci
- The Film Stage
Sergei Loznitsa’s Austerlitz very nearly drew a bad review from me yesterday, as I was still reeling from Malick’s Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey. That was largely due to the fact that the Ukranian documentarean's film initially felt like a similarly self-indulgent piece that slowed time into an unsufferable lethargy. Fortunately, Loznitsa’s work always somehow seem to come good in the end. At first, Austerlitz begins amidst a sea of people (just as Maidan did), and we observe them as if from the bushes at a frustratingly inert pace. Put frankly, the sensation this creates is not unlike the dissatisfaction of being in an endless queue at a theme park. Except we’re not at a theme park, we’re at the gates of one of the...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 9/7/2016
- Screen Anarchy
"Follow me this way..." If you've followed the Cannes Film Festival in the last decade, you know the name Sergei Loznitsa - a Ukrainian filmmaker who has premiered numerous films at the festival in the past few years. His latest work is a documentary called Austerlitz, which examines the baffling yet common idea of visiting the grounds of former Nazi concentration camps. "One of the biggest mysteries of such places is the motive that induces thousands of people to spend their summer weekends in former concentration camps looking at ovens in a crematorium. To try to come to grips with this, I made this film," Loznitsa explains. This trailer is a very bleak introduction that instantly asks: why are these places so popular with tourists? Here's the festival trailer for Sergei Loznitsa's doc Austerlitz, direct from Tiff's YouTube: The new film from Sergei Loznitsa (Maidan, The Event, In the Fog...
- 8/22/2016
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Bouncing between feature films (“My Joy“) and documentaries (“Maidan,” “The Event“), director Sergei Loznitsa has carved out a niche of patient pictures, that sometimes take more than few moments to reveal themselves. And his work has attracted a loyal following on the international arthouse circuit where he’ll return again this fall with his latest documentary, […]
The post New Trailer For Sergei Loznitsa’s ‘Austerlitz,’ Headed To Venice & Tiff appeared first on The Playlist.
The post New Trailer For Sergei Loznitsa’s ‘Austerlitz,’ Headed To Venice & Tiff appeared first on The Playlist.
- 8/22/2016
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Glenn here. Each Tuesday reviews n documentaries from theatres, festivals, and on demand. This week four more from Miff following last week's round-up.
The Event
One of Russian/Ukrainian cinema’s contemporary masters, Sergei Loznitsa, has a career that has successfully juggles both documentary traditional narrative cinema. His latest is The Event, a rather exceptional example of the artform that at just 74 minutes long nonetheless has the aura of an epic. Utilizing only black and white 35mm archival footage recorded in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) over the three days of the attempted coup d’etat that failed and eventually brought about the end of the U.S.S.R., The Event is a key reminder that for many in the world dictatorships, revolutions, and social revolt are issues of genuine life and death and not just something to tweet about online.
The found footage is of a remarkable quality, having...
The Event
One of Russian/Ukrainian cinema’s contemporary masters, Sergei Loznitsa, has a career that has successfully juggles both documentary traditional narrative cinema. His latest is The Event, a rather exceptional example of the artform that at just 74 minutes long nonetheless has the aura of an epic. Utilizing only black and white 35mm archival footage recorded in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) over the three days of the attempted coup d’etat that failed and eventually brought about the end of the U.S.S.R., The Event is a key reminder that for many in the world dictatorships, revolutions, and social revolt are issues of genuine life and death and not just something to tweet about online.
The found footage is of a remarkable quality, having...
- 8/9/2016
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
Film loosely inspired by Dostoyevsky story to shoot in and around Latvian city of Daugavpils.
Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa will begin shooting his Fyodor Dostoyevsky-inspired feature A Gentle Creature in the Latvian city of Daugavpils this week, Paris-based producer Slot Machine announced on Monday.
The five-week shoot, which kicks-off on Tuesday (July 19), will take place mainly in and around Daugavpils, Latvia’s second largest city which lies in the southeast of the country on the border with Lithuania and Belarus. Some scenes will also be shot in Lithuania.
The feature — loosely inspired by Russian writer Dostoyevsky’s 1876 short story A Gentle Creature – revolves around a woman who travels to a prison in a remote region to find out what has happened to her incarcerated husband after a parcel she sent is returned without explanation.
“It’s a completely invented story: I invented it from start to finish. I was inspired by Dostoyevsky’s novella, which he himself...
Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa will begin shooting his Fyodor Dostoyevsky-inspired feature A Gentle Creature in the Latvian city of Daugavpils this week, Paris-based producer Slot Machine announced on Monday.
The five-week shoot, which kicks-off on Tuesday (July 19), will take place mainly in and around Daugavpils, Latvia’s second largest city which lies in the southeast of the country on the border with Lithuania and Belarus. Some scenes will also be shot in Lithuania.
The feature — loosely inspired by Russian writer Dostoyevsky’s 1876 short story A Gentle Creature – revolves around a woman who travels to a prison in a remote region to find out what has happened to her incarcerated husband after a parcel she sent is returned without explanation.
“It’s a completely invented story: I invented it from start to finish. I was inspired by Dostoyevsky’s novella, which he himself...
- 7/18/2016
- ScreenDaily
"Sergei Loznitsa’s The Event makes a striking follow-up, if not strictly a companion piece, to his Maidan, which documented the recent political protests in Ukraine," begins Jonathan Romney in Screen. "In his new film, the Belarus-born director documents similarly turbulent and decisive events in Russia, nearly 25 years ago, but this time exclusively through archive footage—a technique he previously used in his 2006 film Blockade, about the Siege of Leningrad." The film premiered in Venice, then screened in Toronto, and we've got more reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 9/21/2015
- Keyframe
"Sergei Loznitsa’s The Event makes a striking follow-up, if not strictly a companion piece, to his Maidan, which documented the recent political protests in Ukraine," begins Jonathan Romney in Screen. "In his new film, the Belarus-born director documents similarly turbulent and decisive events in Russia, nearly 25 years ago, but this time exclusively through archive footage—a technique he previously used in his 2006 film Blockade, about the Siege of Leningrad." The film premiered in Venice, then screened in Toronto, and we've got more reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 9/21/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Dear Fernando,Did you catch Tsai Ming-liang’s masterpiece Journey to the West at the festival last year? Those hoping that Tsai’s follow-up after that exhilaratingly pure film and the majestically decayed Stray Dogs would have a similarly expansive vision will be disappointed by Afternoon, a two-odd-hour, four-take long video conversation between the director and his inseparable actor-muse-alter-ego-best-friend, Lee Kang-sheng, made as a gallery installation to accompany Stray Dogs but shown in a cinema at Tiff. Yet by its very nature Tsai’s sorrowful minimalism has never been more emotional. The director is a veritable blabbermouth, and whether spurned on either by the mysterious motivation for the project, his interlocuting actor’s dry silence, or nervousness in the presence of the quite noticable camera crew (awkwardly tipping their heads in the frame, taking photographs, and later even asking questions as the conversation dwindles), Tsai Ming-liang nervously but avidly, movingly...
- 9/20/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Going UNDERGROUNDEverybody and their dog, it seems, feels this off imperative to try to identify common themes in the handful of festival films they (we) (I) see in a given year. It's the Ghost of Hegel, I suppose, demanding that we make sense of our times by referring to some Zeitgeist. (Zeitgeist? Isn't this just as likely to Strand the FilmsWeLike in some oh-so-precious Music Box, to be unearthed years later by members of some as-yet-unassembled Cinema Guild? But I digress.) There may or may not be tendencies running through this year's feature selections, and if there are, that could have as much to do with the people who selected them than with any global mood. But there does seem to be a generalized turning-inward, with filmmakers making works about themselves and their immediate lives, the cinematic process, and the very complexities of communicating with other human beings. There are...
- 9/17/2015
- by Michael Sicinski
- MUBI
★★★★☆ With Maidan (2014), Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa made a stunning document of recent events, giving the sensation that history was being freshly minted and world-changing events taking place amidst the stink of burning tires and the febrile excitement of new hope. Although The Event (2015) is set in Russia and relates to a moment almost a quarter of a century in the past, the relationship between the two films speaks all the louder for not being spoken. The film is a mirror held up to the Russian people as if to say "You had your Maidan, now let us have ours". The event of the title was the failed coup d'état that took place in August 1991.
Shocked by the pace of President Gorbachev's reforms and seizing on the opportunity presented by the Premier's untimely summer holiday, Communist hardliners staged a Putsch. Gorbachev was detained, the TV and radio was seized and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake blared out.
Shocked by the pace of President Gorbachev's reforms and seizing on the opportunity presented by the Premier's untimely summer holiday, Communist hardliners staged a Putsch. Gorbachev was detained, the TV and radio was seized and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake blared out.
- 9/14/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
"The Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity by now has been the subject matter of a slew of movies, each dramatically different from the other," begins Boris Nelepo, writing for Cinema Scope. "There was Sergei Loznitsa’s auteur project Maidan; the reportage Kiev/Moscow by Alexander Rastorguev and Pavel Kostomarov; and the chronicle Stronger Than Arms by the #Babylon’13 collective. Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom by Evgeniy Afineevsky (director of the 2009 comedy Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!) attempts to document the unrest in minute detail, day after day, thus purporting to relate the story 'as it really happened.' Made for Netflix, this account is geared, first and foremost, toward American and European audiences who haven’t the foggiest notion of what actually transpired on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev." We have more reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 9/11/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
"The Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity by now has been the subject matter of a slew of movies, each dramatically different from the other," begins Boris Nelepo, writing for Cinema Scope. "There was Sergei Loznitsa’s auteur project Maidan; the reportage Kiev/Moscow by Alexander Rastorguev and Pavel Kostomarov; and the chronicle Stronger Than Arms by the #Babylon’13 collective. Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom by Evgeniy Afineevsky (director of the 2009 comedy Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!) attempts to document the unrest in minute detail, day after day, thus purporting to relate the story 'as it really happened.' Made for Netflix, this account is geared, first and foremost, toward American and European audiences who haven’t the foggiest notion of what actually transpired on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev." We have more reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 9/11/2015
- Keyframe
Arthouse heads and world cinema buffs likely know the name Sergei Loznitsa for films like "My Joy" and "In The Fog," but even they are likely having trouble keeping up with the director's prolific output. Last year he delivered the documentary "Maidan," and this year he's back with another, albeit one with a bit of a twist. Read More: Watch: Trailer For Sergei Loznitsa's Cannes Documentary About Ukrainian Protests 'Maidan' "The Event" finds Loznitsa using archival material to put together a found footage documentary about an attempted coup d'etat in Russia in August 1991. The trailer looks like a stirring assemblage of video, and a fascinating snapshot of a historical moment. Here's the full synopsis: In August 1991, a failed coup d'état in Moscow by a group of communist reactionaries expedited the demise of the ailing Soviet Union. As the hammer and sickle that flew over the Kremlin was...
- 8/28/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
In Reverse Shot, Michael Pattison writes about the 18 films Sergei Loznitsa has made since 1996: "In his three best-known films"—My Joy (2010), In the Fog (2012) and Maidan (2014)—"he shows himself to be—all at once—an artist, a documentarian, an ethnographer, a historian, and a storyteller." Also in today's roundup: David Bordwell on Jean-Luc Godard, Burt Lancaster and Bill Forsyth; Howard Hampton on Stephen Frears's My Beautiful Laundrette; Jonathan Rosenbaum on Carl Dreyer’s Gertrud; James Slaymaker on Robert Greene; Patrick Z. McGavin's interview with Christian Petzold and Nina Hoss; plus Jacques Rivette's interview with Jean Renoir and more. » - David Hudson...
- 8/4/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
In Reverse Shot, Michael Pattison writes about the 18 films Sergei Loznitsa has made since 1996: "In his three best-known films"—My Joy (2010), In the Fog (2012) and Maidan (2014)—"he shows himself to be—all at once—an artist, a documentarian, an ethnographer, a historian, and a storyteller." Also in today's roundup: David Bordwell on Jean-Luc Godard, Burt Lancaster and Bill Forsyth; Howard Hampton on Stephen Frears's My Beautiful Laundrette; Jonathan Rosenbaum on Carl Dreyer’s Gertrud; James Slaymaker on Robert Greene; Patrick Z. McGavin's interview with Christian Petzold and Nina Hoss; plus Jacques Rivette's interview with Jean Renoir and more. » - David Hudson...
- 8/4/2015
- Keyframe
With the exception of Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation and Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, the nineteen other films in Venice Film Festival’s contention for the Golden Lion won’t be mentioned during awards season, but who cares when you have the likes of Aleksander Sokurov, Luca Guadagnino and Marco Bellocchio in the line-up. Not unlike previous years, the 2015 edition has a good numbers of films from Italy and the U.S., with several France co-productions littered throughout and the addition of fresh faces with first time works from composer Piero Messina and artist/musician Laurie Anderson.
While non comp offerings in the shape of Scott Cooper’s Black Mass and Thomas McCarthy’s Spotlight are sure to receive a fair amount of trade news attention it’s the docus that are especially rich this year: Frederick Wiseman is joined by Sergei Loznitsa makes back to...
While non comp offerings in the shape of Scott Cooper’s Black Mass and Thomas McCarthy’s Spotlight are sure to receive a fair amount of trade news attention it’s the docus that are especially rich this year: Frederick Wiseman is joined by Sergei Loznitsa makes back to...
- 7/29/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
One of the most diverting new flourishes introduced to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for its 50th incarnation this week, is a brand new sidebar in which six international directors were invited to present their favorite films not from their own oeuvres. Dubbed "Six Close Encounters" it gave us Mark Cousins presenting underseen Iranian jewel "A Moment of Innocence"; Michael Roskam ("Bullhead," "The Drop") presenting Jules Dassin's anointed classic "Rififi"; Kim Ki-Duk presenting Lee Chang-dong's immaculate "Poetry"; Sergei Loznitsa ("Maidan") presenting raw Russian epic "The Asthenic Syndrome"; and, in an oddly apropos choice, Sion Sono ("Tokyo Tribe") presenting "Babe." The first one, not the weird dark second one. Rounding out the line-up, however, was George Romero, who introduced Powell & Pressburger's "The Tales of Hoffmann" in its pristine new 4K...
- 7/15/2015
- by Jessica Kiang
- The Playlist
New film from The Tribe director among projects at Odessa.
New films by award-winning Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (The Tribe), documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky (Pipeline) and Lithuania’s Sharunas Bartas (Freedom) are among over two dozen projects being presented at the Odessa International Film Festival’s industry section, the Film Industry Office (Fio, July 14-17).
Bartas’ drama Frost, which is being structured as a co-production between Ukraine, Lithuania and France, tells the story of a young Lithuanian’s experiences as he drives his truck with humanitarian aid from Vilnius to Ukraine.
The $936,000 (€850,000) production by Odessa-based Truman Production is one of ten feature film projects competing for a prize to be judged by a jury made up of the producers Guillaume de Seille, Raymond van der Kaaij and Anna Katchko as well as Meetings on the Bridge chief Gülin Üstün.
The pitching line-up this year ranges from Sebastian Saam’s black comedy-thriller Midnight In Uman (working title) through...
New films by award-winning Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (The Tribe), documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky (Pipeline) and Lithuania’s Sharunas Bartas (Freedom) are among over two dozen projects being presented at the Odessa International Film Festival’s industry section, the Film Industry Office (Fio, July 14-17).
Bartas’ drama Frost, which is being structured as a co-production between Ukraine, Lithuania and France, tells the story of a young Lithuanian’s experiences as he drives his truck with humanitarian aid from Vilnius to Ukraine.
The $936,000 (€850,000) production by Odessa-based Truman Production is one of ten feature film projects competing for a prize to be judged by a jury made up of the producers Guillaume de Seille, Raymond van der Kaaij and Anna Katchko as well as Meetings on the Bridge chief Gülin Üstün.
The pitching line-up this year ranges from Sebastian Saam’s black comedy-thriller Midnight In Uman (working title) through...
- 7/8/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
The Ann Arbor Film Festival celebrates its epic 53rd annual edition on March 24-29 with a colossal selection of experimental short films and features.
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
- 3/24/2015
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Sergei Loznitsa’s fixed camera captures the tragedy of the protests in Kiev’s Independence Square with haunting intensity
This film from Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa it is a remarkable record of the popular demonstration in Kiev’s Independence Square (the Maidan Nezalezhnosti) during the winter of 2013-14, against the pro-Moscow presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. The protests led to his downfall, and to violent chaos, the deaths of 100 protesters and the start of the ongoing confrontation between pro-Russian and pro-eu factions. With no music or voiceover, Loznitsa captures the event with a series of long, uninterrupted shots of the crowded square and neighbouring places from (mostly) fixed camera positions. The hypnotic, deep-focus scenes look like images from some deadly serious, modern version of Les Misérables. The camera appears to have been positioned miraculously, almost invisibly, creating the impression of access to a vivid, unmediated reality. It utterly negates the grammar...
This film from Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa it is a remarkable record of the popular demonstration in Kiev’s Independence Square (the Maidan Nezalezhnosti) during the winter of 2013-14, against the pro-Moscow presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. The protests led to his downfall, and to violent chaos, the deaths of 100 protesters and the start of the ongoing confrontation between pro-Russian and pro-eu factions. With no music or voiceover, Loznitsa captures the event with a series of long, uninterrupted shots of the crowded square and neighbouring places from (mostly) fixed camera positions. The hypnotic, deep-focus scenes look like images from some deadly serious, modern version of Les Misérables. The camera appears to have been positioned miraculously, almost invisibly, creating the impression of access to a vivid, unmediated reality. It utterly negates the grammar...
- 2/19/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Catherine Shoard and Benjamin Lee join Henry Barnes for our weekly round-up of cinema releases. This week the team get tied up with Peter Strickland's Bdsm love story The Duke of Burgundy; loop-de-loop through time with Ethan Hawke in Predestination; watch the Ukrainian revolution ignite with Sergei Loznitsa's documentary Maidan; and taste the pain with Jennifer Aniston as a depressed car crash victim in indie drama Cake.
• The film show team will be appearing live tonight at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton to predict who will win this year's Oscars. Buy a ticket and join the debate Continue reading...
• The film show team will be appearing live tonight at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton to predict who will win this year's Oscars. Buy a ticket and join the debate Continue reading...
- 2/19/2015
- by Henry Barnes, Catherine Shoard, Benjamin Lee, Paul Frankl, Mona Mahmood and Joan Portillo
- The Guardian - Film News
Directed by Sergei Loznitsa, Maidan captures the violent clashes between police and protesters that took over Kiev's eponymous public square from late 2013 to early 2014. In this exclusive clip a demonstrator appears to be shot by police before he is helped away by other protesters carrying makeshift shields. Maidan is out now in the Us and is released in the UK on 20 February. The film is screening as part of the Guardian Live's Doc Sundays series on 22 February Continue reading...
- 1/13/2015
- by Guardian Staff
- The Guardian - Film News
Babi Yar
Director: Sergei Loznitsa // Writer: Sergei Loznitsa
Ukrainian documentarian Sergei Loznitsa made waves with his 2010 feature debut My Joy, followed by 2012’s In the Fog, both which played in the competition at Cannes. He returned last year out of competition with documentary Maidan, as well as a segment in the anthology film The Bridges of Sarajevo. An arrestingly bleak filmmaker, his films elude wider appeal with their immersive and unrelenting deliberations of abusive powers and war torn wastelands. Announced back in 2013, we’re hoping to see Loznitsa unveil his third feature, Babi Yar, which documents the eponymously referenced massacre from 1941 of 33,000+ Jews shot and killed over two days in September and thrown into a ravine. Recent interviews with Loznitsa have seen the director describe the project as depicting how “slowly and gradually, people plunge into hell.”
Cast: Not available.
Production Co.: Arp, Gp Film and Pronto
U.S.
Director: Sergei Loznitsa // Writer: Sergei Loznitsa
Ukrainian documentarian Sergei Loznitsa made waves with his 2010 feature debut My Joy, followed by 2012’s In the Fog, both which played in the competition at Cannes. He returned last year out of competition with documentary Maidan, as well as a segment in the anthology film The Bridges of Sarajevo. An arrestingly bleak filmmaker, his films elude wider appeal with their immersive and unrelenting deliberations of abusive powers and war torn wastelands. Announced back in 2013, we’re hoping to see Loznitsa unveil his third feature, Babi Yar, which documents the eponymously referenced massacre from 1941 of 33,000+ Jews shot and killed over two days in September and thrown into a ravine. Recent interviews with Loznitsa have seen the director describe the project as depicting how “slowly and gradually, people plunge into hell.”
Cast: Not available.
Production Co.: Arp, Gp Film and Pronto
U.S.
- 1/8/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Senses of Cinema has posted the results of its 2014 World Poll and among the many other best-of-2014 lists we've gathered today is Reverse Shot's. #1 is Richard Linklater's Boyhood, followed by Alain Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake, Tsai Ming-liang's Stray Dogs, Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language, James Gray's The Immigrant, Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez's Manakamana, Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, Joaquim Pinto's What Now? Remind Me, Ramon Zürcher's The Strange Little Cat, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne's Two Days, One Night and Sergei Loznitsa's Maidan. » - David Hudson...
- 1/6/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Senses of Cinema has posted the results of its 2014 World Poll and among the many other best-of-2014 lists we've gathered today is Reverse Shot's. #1 is Richard Linklater's Boyhood, followed by Alain Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake, Tsai Ming-liang's Stray Dogs, Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language, James Gray's The Immigrant, Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez's Manakamana, Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, Joaquim Pinto's What Now? Remind Me, Ramon Zürcher's The Strange Little Cat, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne's Two Days, One Night and Sergei Loznitsa's Maidan. » - David Hudson...
- 1/6/2015
- Keyframe
Something of his sad freedom
As he rode the tumbril
Should come to me, driving,
Saying the names
Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,
Watching the pointing hands
Of country people,
Not knowing their tongue.
Out here in Jutland
In the old man-killing parishes
I will feel lost,
Unhappy and at home.
—Seamus Heaney, The Tollund Man
It ended, like all journeys do, in Solitude, a long way from any cinema. Solitude—or rather Zolitūde, in Latvian—is a suburb of Riga, four miles as the crow flies from the fancy Scandi-Gothic-Art Nouveau city centre; six miles on foot if the pedestrian avoids diversions. But by the time I reached Solitude on that cold December Saturday afternoon, however, my inadvertent divagations must have pushed the total to the ten-mile mark. I'd looked at maps prior to departing from my hotel, of course but deliberately didn't bring one along (not a fan); I don't...
As he rode the tumbril
Should come to me, driving,
Saying the names
Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,
Watching the pointing hands
Of country people,
Not knowing their tongue.
Out here in Jutland
In the old man-killing parishes
I will feel lost,
Unhappy and at home.
—Seamus Heaney, The Tollund Man
It ended, like all journeys do, in Solitude, a long way from any cinema. Solitude—or rather Zolitūde, in Latvian—is a suburb of Riga, four miles as the crow flies from the fancy Scandi-Gothic-Art Nouveau city centre; six miles on foot if the pedestrian avoids diversions. But by the time I reached Solitude on that cold December Saturday afternoon, however, my inadvertent divagations must have pushed the total to the ten-mile mark. I'd looked at maps prior to departing from my hotel, of course but deliberately didn't bring one along (not a fan); I don't...
- 1/4/2015
- by Neil Young
- MUBI
Nicole Brenez, Alain Guiraudie, Darezhan Omirbayev, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Kent Jones, Joshua Oppenheimer, Aaron Cutler, Sean Baker, Lois Patiño, Diego Lerer, Denis Côte and Gabe Klinger are just a few of the many who have contributed best-of-2014 lists to Otros Cines. Roger Koza's counted the ballots and the top three are Pedro Costa's Horse Money, Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage, Lisandro Alonso's Jauja, Sergei Loznitsa's Maidan and Aleksey German's Hard to be a God. Meantime, FiveThirtyEight has surveyed 30 national publications and found that—no surprise here—Richard Linklater's Boyhood is the clear favorite. » - David Hudson...
- 12/27/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Nicole Brenez, Alain Guiraudie, Darezhan Omirbayev, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Kent Jones, Joshua Oppenheimer, Aaron Cutler, Sean Baker, Lois Patiño, Diego Lerer, Denis Côte and Gabe Klinger are just a few of the many who have contributed best-of-2014 lists to Otros Cines. Roger Koza's counted the ballots and the top three are Pedro Costa's Horse Money, Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage, Lisandro Alonso's Jauja, Sergei Loznitsa's Maidan and Aleksey German's Hard to be a God. Meantime, FiveThirtyEight has surveyed 30 national publications and found that—no surprise here—Richard Linklater's Boyhood is the clear favorite. » - David Hudson...
- 12/27/2014
- Keyframe
Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language comes in at #1 on La Furia Umana's list of the top ten films of 2014. For Michael Atkinson at In These Times, it's Sergei Loznitsa's Maidan. Christopher Orr, film critic for the Atlantic, goes for J.C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year. Meantime, the The New York Review of Books gathers 20 reviews it's run this year, including David Bromwich on Laura Poitras's Citizenfour, Zoë Heller on David Fincher's Gone Girl, J. Hoberman on Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez’s Manakamana, Geoffrey O'Brien on Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin and Francine Prose on Agnieszka Holland's Burning Bush. » - David Hudson...
- 12/23/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language comes in at #1 on La Furia Umana's list of the top ten films of 2014. For Michael Atkinson at In These Times, it's Sergei Loznitsa's Maidan. Christopher Orr, film critic for the Atlantic, goes for J.C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year. Meantime, the The New York Review of Books gathers 20 reviews it's run this year, including David Bromwich on Laura Poitras's Citizenfour, Zoë Heller on David Fincher's Gone Girl, J. Hoberman on Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez’s Manakamana, Geoffrey O'Brien on Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin and Francine Prose on Agnieszka Holland's Burning Bush. » - David Hudson...
- 12/23/2014
- Keyframe
This is a reprint of our review from the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Sergei Loznitsa is no stranger to Cannes, both of his previous features competing for the Palme d’Or with 2012’s “In The Fog” winning the critics’ Fipresci prize. So when news went around that he’s making a documentary on the Ukrainian protests, there was only one place for it to premiere. “Maidan” is a study of a people under stress, a spirit hindered by totalitarianism, and the grasping of patriotic straws with the last God-given strength a nation has. The trouble with the picture is that it’s barren of cinematic context; the camera doesn’t so much as tilt or pan, remaining irrevocably fixed and observing straight ahead. Because of this, our patience was tested more than it has been with any other picture at this year’s festival (and it’s worth pointing out, we...
- 12/12/2014
- by Nikola Grozdanovic
- The Playlist
Easily the most rigorous, vital, and powerful movie of 2014, Sergei Loznitsa's Maidan may be a perfect Bazinian cinema-machine — reality is captured, crystallized, honored for its organic complexity, and delivered unpoisoned by exposition or emphasis. Every dissatisfaction you could be nursing about the obvious and overdetermined tenor of contemporary film — and particularly modern documentaries — is met here with thrown bricks.
It helps that the "reality" in question is also heart-quickening. Before making the two best and most dismaying post-Soviet-region films of the last five years — My Joy (2010) and In the Fog (2012) — the Ukrainian-bred Loznitsa was a documentarian, and here he returns to his original strategy, with...
It helps that the "reality" in question is also heart-quickening. Before making the two best and most dismaying post-Soviet-region films of the last five years — My Joy (2010) and In the Fog (2012) — the Ukrainian-bred Loznitsa was a documentarian, and here he returns to his original strategy, with...
- 12/10/2014
- Village Voice
Veteran filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa's "Maidan," a Cannes and 2014 Karlovy Vary entry, is an unusual front lines doc that takes a different aesthetic approach from "The Square," which grabbed multiple video feeds and interviewed key participants at Egypt's uprising in Tahir Square. "Maidan," referring to the central square in Kiev where thousands of ordinary Ukraine citizens encamped to protest the government, takes getting used to. Deploying the camera as an impersonal, trustworthy and objective observer, fiction and doc filmmaker Loznitsa locks it down on a tripod for long static stretches in various locations--he chooses them as events unfold, sometimes in order to run to safe, higher ground--and edits the results. At the beginning, we see people walking into the hub of operations for this extraordinary group effort. It's dull at first, but you begin to figure out what the filmmaker is showing us. How do you feed, house and support a.
- 12/9/2014
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Distributor acquires UK rights for Sergei Loznitsa’s Ukrainian documentary, set for theatrical release in February 2015.
Maidan chronicles the civil unrest and uprising against the regime of president Yanukovych in the central square of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital during the winter of 2013/14.
The film follows the progress of the revolution: from peaceful rallies half a million strong in the Maidan square, to the bloody street battles between the protesters and riot police.
The deal, brokered by Dogwoof head of distribution Oli Harbottle with production company Atom and Void, will see the documentary open Dogwoof’s 2015 slate.
“Maidan is ever-relevant as an important political statement as well as being a stunning artistic documentary,” said Harbottle. “It’s a great way to kick off what promises to be Dogwoof’s best year yet in terms of our line-up.”
Director Sergei Loznitsa added: “After the enthusiastic response the film has received at the BFI London Film Festival we are confident...
Maidan chronicles the civil unrest and uprising against the regime of president Yanukovych in the central square of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital during the winter of 2013/14.
The film follows the progress of the revolution: from peaceful rallies half a million strong in the Maidan square, to the bloody street battles between the protesters and riot police.
The deal, brokered by Dogwoof head of distribution Oli Harbottle with production company Atom and Void, will see the documentary open Dogwoof’s 2015 slate.
“Maidan is ever-relevant as an important political statement as well as being a stunning artistic documentary,” said Harbottle. “It’s a great way to kick off what promises to be Dogwoof’s best year yet in terms of our line-up.”
Director Sergei Loznitsa added: “After the enthusiastic response the film has received at the BFI London Film Festival we are confident...
- 11/21/2014
- ScreenDaily
Film restoration expert Paul Korver and former American Cinematheque head of programming Dennis Bartok have thrown their hat into the distribution arena with Cinelicious Pics.
The nascent company aims to release both new and restored art house and cult classics across the spectrum from theatrical to VOD, Blu-ray and DVD and TV, although the principals said the slate would not be genre or era-specific.
Rounding out the company’s leadership is head of business affairs, entertainment lawyer Kristine Blumensaadt, as well as a support team of marketers, publicists, and restoration talent.
The initial roster kicks off in autumn with Adam Rifkin’s documentary Giuseppe Makes A Movie, Ragnar Bragason’s Metalhead and Elena Tikhonova and Dominik Spritzendorfer documentary Elektro Moskva.
“We’re huge film enthusiasts, first and foremost, and have a deep appreciation for how challenging it can be to bring a unique film to a wider audience,” said evp of acquisitions and distribution Bartok. “Our goal is...
The nascent company aims to release both new and restored art house and cult classics across the spectrum from theatrical to VOD, Blu-ray and DVD and TV, although the principals said the slate would not be genre or era-specific.
Rounding out the company’s leadership is head of business affairs, entertainment lawyer Kristine Blumensaadt, as well as a support team of marketers, publicists, and restoration talent.
The initial roster kicks off in autumn with Adam Rifkin’s documentary Giuseppe Makes A Movie, Ragnar Bragason’s Metalhead and Elena Tikhonova and Dominik Spritzendorfer documentary Elektro Moskva.
“We’re huge film enthusiasts, first and foremost, and have a deep appreciation for how challenging it can be to bring a unique film to a wider audience,” said evp of acquisitions and distribution Bartok. “Our goal is...
- 6/16/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary world premieres as a special screening in Official Selection.
France’s Arp Seléction is the first distributor to pick up Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary Maidan which is having its world premiere as a special screening in Cannes’ Official Selection.
Speaking exclusively with ScreenDaily, Maria Choustova-Baker of the film’s production company Atoms & Void said the Arp had acquired rights to French-speaking territories worldwide, and the film has also been sold to Against Gravity (Poland), Cinema Delicatessen (The Netherlands) and Arthouse Traffic (Ukraine).
She added that Arp Seléction will release the film theatrically in France on May 23.
Shot as events unfolded in Kiev from mid-November 2013, Maidan is one of the first projects from the Dutch-based production outfit Atoms & Void which Loznitsa set up with Choustova-Baker last year.
The company, which is also handling world sales on Maidan, first produced the 20-minute short documentary Letter which won the Golden Dragon and Prix Efa at...
France’s Arp Seléction is the first distributor to pick up Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary Maidan which is having its world premiere as a special screening in Cannes’ Official Selection.
Speaking exclusively with ScreenDaily, Maria Choustova-Baker of the film’s production company Atoms & Void said the Arp had acquired rights to French-speaking territories worldwide, and the film has also been sold to Against Gravity (Poland), Cinema Delicatessen (The Netherlands) and Arthouse Traffic (Ukraine).
She added that Arp Seléction will release the film theatrically in France on May 23.
Shot as events unfolded in Kiev from mid-November 2013, Maidan is one of the first projects from the Dutch-based production outfit Atoms & Void which Loznitsa set up with Choustova-Baker last year.
The company, which is also handling world sales on Maidan, first produced the 20-minute short documentary Letter which won the Golden Dragon and Prix Efa at...
- 5/15/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
This morning the 2014 Cannes Film Festival lineup was announced and while at least one Out of Competition title is still to be announced, along with the Critics' Week and Directors' Fortnight lineups, we have a look at what films make up the competition and it's largely a lot of the titles that were rumored heading into today's announcement. Among the competition titles you have Atom Egoyan's Captives, which we'll have to hope is better than Devil's Knot, Bennett Miller's highly anticipated Foxcatcher, Jean-Luc Godard's 3D feature Goodbye To Language, The Homesman from Tommy Lee Jones, Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall and David Cronengberg's Maps to the Stars. I'm jealous I won't be there to see Xavier Dolan's first time in competition with Mommy, Mike Leigh is again at Cannes with Mr. Turner and Michel Hazanavicius returns to Cannes after The Artist took the fest by storm with The Search.
- 4/17/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.