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(Ukraine/2018—directed by Sergei Loznitsa)
The Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine, mid-2010s: a hybrid war takes place, involving an open armed conflict alongside killings and robberies on a mass scale perpetrated by Russian-separatist gangs. In Donbass, war is called peace, propaganda is uttered as truth, and hatred is declared to be love. Life is suffused with fear and suspicion, and what is real and what is not are disastrously intertwined. Filmed in 2018 as both a look back at Russia’s 2014 invasion as well as a “what if” scenario of terrible yet darkly ironic possibilities, Donbass reveals itself as a crucial and prescient masterwork, yet the movie is ultimately a tale of more than a single region or historical conflict. This is a portrait of a world drowning in post-truth and deceptive identities – in other words, a portrait of the world today. Best Director Prize, Cannes Film Festival; Ukrainian Film Academy Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture of the Year.
In Russian, Ukrainian and English, with English subtitles. (122 minutes)
"There’s no other anti-war film quite like Donbass. We may need more films as bracing as this to slap us straight about where this is leading us all.”
-Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
“Critic’s Pick! Could a wider audience for Donbass, an Oscar entry in 2019, have made a difference before this year? Can it make a difference now? The movie’s bitter achievement is in its granular, ground-level concreteness. It’s horrific, impossible, extreme — and also understated.” -A.O. Scott, The New York Times
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