A Masterclass with Ukrainian film director Sergei Loznitsa

The Ukrainian Project at the Icelandic University presents, in collaboration with the Icelandic Film Center and Bíó Paradís: A Masterclass with Ukrainian film director Sergei Loznitsa.

Date: Friday, April 14. 2023 – 10.00 to 16.00 Bíó Paradís 1.

The Masterclass is free but requires registration before the11.th of April.

Sergei Loznitsa (b. 1964) is an award-winning filmmaker working in both documentary and feature genres. His first degree is in Applied Mathematics from the Kiev Polytechnic. Following several years of work in the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, he went on to study filmmaking at the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, graduating in 1997.

The course will provide an overview of the various aspects and challenges of creating archival documentaries such as 2022's The Natural History of Destruction

Loznitsa also will talk about his feature films 

Like Donbass from 2018 which describes the absurdity and violence of Russia's war against Ukraine which started in 2014.

Sergei Loznitsa has directed 22 internationally acclaimed documentary and 4 feature films. His first two feature films, My Joy (Schastye moe), 2010 and In the Fog (V tumane), 2012 had their world premieres at the Festival de Cannes, where In the Fog received the FIPRESCI prize. Loznitsa’s feature-length documentary film Maidan, dedicated to the Ukrainian Revolution, premiered in 2014 at the Festival de Cannes. His feature-length documentary film The Event (Sobytie) that revisits the dramatic moments of August 1991 in the USSR, a failed coup d’état attempt (known as Putsch) premiered at la Biennale di Venezia in 2015. Followed by Austerlitz in 2016 also celebrating its world premiere in Venice, a feature-length documentary, observing visitors to memorial sites on the territory of former concentration camps in Germany. Loznitsa`s third feature film, A Gentle Creature (Krotkaya), nominated for the Palme d’Or, premiered in Cannes in 2017. In 2018 Sergei Loznitsa presented three new films at the world´s most acclaimed international film festivals: Victory Day, filmed at Treptower Park in Berlin, a memorial park dedicated to the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi-Germany, premiered at the BERLINALE, the International Film Festival in Berlin, and was nominated for the best feature-length documentary. Followed by the world premiere of Loznitsa´s forth feature film Donbass at the Festival de Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section for which Sergei Loznitsa was awarded as the best director. The Trial (Process), for which Loznitsa used archival chronicles depicting the first of the Moscow Trials from 1930, premiered at la Biennale di Venezia in September the same year. In 2019 "State Funeral", Loznitsa’s documentary film, premiered out of competition at the 76th Biennale di Venezia. Made out of mostly unseen before archive footage from March 1953 the film presents the funeral of Joseph Stalin as the culmination of the dictator’s personality cult. Mr. Landsbergis an epic documentary about Lithuania’s struggle to restore its independence won the Best Film award for director Sergei Loznitsa and the Best Editing prize for Danielius Kokanauskis at the 34th annual International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2021 Awards Ceremony in Amsterdam. The Natural History of Destruction, the latest film of Sergei Loznitsa, was selected in the Official Selction of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

Sergei Loznitsa's Masterclass in Bíó Paradís on April 14th will be held in English.

All welcome! Register here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c31-PoVZRse9_yb75WIr5O9hgvYskJ3TfO61...