There have long been at least two sides to Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s formidable reputation. The first emphasizes his serious, even scabrous engagement with the Soviet past (as seen in Blockade, The Event, several others) and Putinian present (Maidan) in documentaries ingeniously assembled from archival footage and participant recordings. The second foregrounds his “fictional” features, which explore similar themes from an often grim, but obliquely absurdist, perspective.
Donbass is a feature film that might be mistaken at points for a documentary (or a faux-, meta-documentary). Above all it’s a film that’s been engulfed by current events–it can’t help but scan at least a little differently today, during wartime, then it would have upon its initial release in 2018, when many fewer Americans knew where, or even what, the Donbass was (namely, a general term for Ukraine’s two easternmost regions, the Luhansk and the Donetsk.)
They know now, which may make watching Donbass a bit less disorienting. Good thing, too, because Loznitsa doesn’t really do exposition. He drops viewers into street-level facsimiles of reportage and self-documentation across terrain riven by rival camps, Ukrainian nationalist and Russian-allied separatists, that maintain their own checkpoints, rules, and versions of reality. The most powerful of the film’s myriad vignettes of debasement and delusion foreground the all-too-human righteousness with which citizen separatists abuse their allegedly “fascist” neighbors. Not only is the landscape lined with mines, but the mindscape is also lined with lies.
What library types will want to add Donbass which won the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2018, to their collections? Academic libraries, indeed, but also public libraries that cultivate deep catalogs of nonfiction titles and/or international cinema. The initial rush on the part of many libraries to add content to displays relating to the war in Ukraine may have receded, but the ongoing level of interest in the region remains high, and Loznitsa’s latest contribution—equal parts drama, critique, and jaundiced satire—provides a valuable lens through which to examine it.
What type of library programming could use this title?
Donbass would be an excellent addition to any adult-oriented library programming efforts related to Ukraine's current geopolitical situation (ie., war).
What subjects or college majors would benefit from the content covered in this film?
Among others, filmmaking, journalism, political science, European and Russian history, sociology and cinema studies all suggest themselves.
How would this film make your organization stand out?
Including Donbass in your collection, or in your library programming, will indicate to those who pay close attention to cinema and world events that your organization pays close attention, too.