STATE FUNERAL
O.V in Russian subtitled in English and Spanish
If last year we were going back to the Soviet past with The Trial, this year Loznitsa composes an overwhelming chronicle of Joseph Stalin's 1953 funeral with shocking unpublished archival images, many in color. His usual strategy of exposing the facts head-on, putting collectivity always in the spotlight, aimed here to portray the magnitude of the worship to this character induced by the terror of the deadliest warlord of socialism. An intoxicating display of visual magnificence that also stands as an absurd mirror of the politics of the present, in which truth is what power commands to be.
Direction: Sergei Loznitsa
Script: Sergei Loznitsa
Production: Sergei Loznitsa, Maria Choustova
Production Company: ATOMS & VOID
SERGEI LOZNITSA
Born in 1964 in the Republic of Belarus, Loznitsa grew up in Kiev, graduating first in Mathematics and later from the Russian Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Since his debut in 1996 he has directed twenty films, winning international recognition and awards at festival such as Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Oberhausen, Jihlava and DocLisboa, among others. He offers one of the sharpest, most intelligent views on the present and past of the Soviet question. His latest films have been programmed at the Seville Festival where in 2015 he won the Best Film Award in the New Waves Non Fiction section with The Event. In 2018 he presented here the films Victory Day, The Trial and Donbass (Best Film Award in Un Certain Regard end Golden Giraldillo to the Best Film). His most recent film, State Funeral, premiered in Venice.