Sergei Loznitsa is a frequent quest at KVIFF. This year he presented his new documentary The Invasion, which shows what everyday life has been like for Ukrainians in the wake of the Russian invasion, which begun on 24 February 2022. “I’m putting all my energy into showing this film wherever I can. We will also be showing it to politicians in Brussels,” said Loznitsa after the screening at the Čas Cinema. The Belarusian-born filmmaker has already produced other films about Ukraine, the documentary Maidan and the black comedy Donbass.
Although Loznitsa’s documentaries include the account of the massacre of Jews at Babi Yar, he said The Invasion was the most painful film he had ever worked on. Made up of many small stories, the film follows the cycle of the year and of human life. “I could make a separate film about each of the episodes. But I wanted colour and variety, to be in different places, even unusual ones. We tried to find a dynamic balance between tragedy and a bit of humour, because life is not so clear-cut either.”
The invasion also captures the paradoxical situation in which Ukrainians threw out not only Russian books but also Ukrainian or American books when the conflict began. At the debate after the screening, the director also recalled that two years ago a plaque disappeared from the house in Kyiv where the dissident Viktor Nekrasov, a Ukrainian writer who wrote in Russian, once lived. “It also speaks to how people are coping with the invasion,” the director said.
