Блокада
Sergei Loznitsa
Russia | 2006 | 52 min
Language : no dialogue
In 2005, Sergei Loznitsa recorded a first in his career as a filmmaker with a film created in the editing room from images shot in Leningrad during the siege by German troops (1941-1944). The sonic recreation of initially silent material imbues the terrible suffering of temporally distant civilians with a disturbing contemporary aura.
In 2005, Sergei Loznitsa added a new chapter to his work: the re-edited film. The first of these recounts, without commentary, the siege of Leningrad by German and Finnish forces, which caused the deaths of 1.8 million people, mostly civilians, from starvation, bombings and combat. While most of the shots used to compose Blockade – drawn from the archives of the Saint Petersburg Documentary Film Studio – had been reused multiple times during the Soviet era, the Ukrainian filmmaker removed those that served to portray a people united against an external enemy under the banner of communism, retaining only the gradual imposition of the blockade and the winter of 1941–1942, a period of extreme famine during which the greatest number of inhabitants perished, with the whole sonically brought to life through the masterful work of Vladimir Golovnitski. This treatment of silent footage from the past produces a striking “effect of reality” which, far from bridging the “too close proximity of times”, irresistibly confronts us with images of far more contemporary conflicts.
Emmanuel Chicon
Emmanuel Chicon
Champ de Mars, 2026
Two Prosecutors, 2025Paleontology lesson, 2025L'Invasion, 2024The Kiev Trial, 2022The Natural History of Destruction, 2022Mr. Landsbergis, 2021Babi Yar. Contexte, 2021A Night at the Opera, 2020State Funeral, 2019The Trial, 2018Reflections, 2018Donbass, 2018A Gentle Creature, 2017Austerlitz, 2016The Event, 2015The Old Jewish Cemetery, 2015Bridges of Sarajevo, 2014Maidan, 2014The Letter, 2013The Miracle of Saint Anthony, 2012In the Fog, 2012My Joy, 2010Northern Light, 2008Revue, 2008Artel, 2006Blockade, 2006Factory, 2004Landscape, 2003The Settlement, 2002Portrait, 2002The Train Stop, 2000
Life, Autumn, 1998
Today We Are Going To Build A House, 1996
Two Prosecutors, 2025Paleontology lesson, 2025L'Invasion, 2024The Kiev Trial, 2022The Natural History of Destruction, 2022Mr. Landsbergis, 2021Babi Yar. Contexte, 2021A Night at the Opera, 2020State Funeral, 2019The Trial, 2018Reflections, 2018Donbass, 2018A Gentle Creature, 2017Austerlitz, 2016The Event, 2015The Old Jewish Cemetery, 2015Bridges of Sarajevo, 2014Maidan, 2014The Letter, 2013The Miracle of Saint Anthony, 2012In the Fog, 2012My Joy, 2010Northern Light, 2008Revue, 2008Artel, 2006Blockade, 2006Factory, 2004Landscape, 2003The Settlement, 2002Portrait, 2002The Train Stop, 2000
Life, Autumn, 1998
Today We Are Going To Build A House, 1996
Screenings and tickets
Screenplay
Sergei Loznitsa
Editing
Sergei Loznitsa
Sound
Vladimir Golovnitski
Production
Viacheslav Telnov
