Movie theatres support Ukrainian refugees with re-screening Donbass - Loznitsa's absurd reality or collection of stereotypes?

Buy a ticket for the film Donbass and thereby support aid to refugees from Ukraine. That is the approach with which the film theatres are once again screening this absurd tragedy with satirical features by Sergei Loznitsa.

The disastrous effects of propaganda and manipulation, as Loznitsa encountered on social media and elsewhere, inspired this depiction of chaos. The chaos in the Donbas, the rebellious eastern part of Ukraine, which was the prelude to the current war. Filmed with actors and residents of the region, and awarded best director in the Un certain regard section at Cannes in 2018.

Donbass is one of the four feature films by Loznitsa, the Ukrainian filmmaker who became best known for a large number of idiosyncratic documentaries. They established his reputation as an important chronicler of Eastern European history.

From Maidan to Donbass

In 2014, for instance, he impressed with Maidan, his account of the protests in Kiev's Maidan Square. Harsh clashes that would be the beginning of the upheaval in Ukraine. Two years later, he looks back with Austerlitz back on the Holocaust. To do so, he set up his camera (Loznitsa prefers to handle it himself) in former concentration camps. In taut, commentary-free images, he captures how those places of horror are now a kind of tourist attraction. Photo opportunity at 'Arbeit macht frei'. Very unreal.

His collage of Soviet propaganda and archive material State Funeral shows the staged mourning after Stalin's death. A look at the phenomenon of power. Loznitsa's most recent documentary is Mr. Landsbergis. In it, we meet the man who was one of the driving forces behind Lithuania's independence movement in the years 1989-1991. His memories of the collapse of the Soviet Union show a different Gorbachev than we were used to.

Wry absurdity

Loznitsa's experience as a documentary filmmaker can also be seen in Donbass (2018). By shaping it as a mosaic of more or less unconnected events, it looks like a disturbing ramble through a dislocated region. Ukrainian soldiers, Russian-backed insurgents and criminal gangs fight each other. In a shelter, we meet desperate civilians. On the public road, a bus carrying passengers is targeted by rocket fire. Businessmen are extorted. A captured Ukrainian is lynched by an oncoming crowd while elsewhere a grotesque wedding takes place. It is survival in a world full of corruption and lawlessness. I see a film in which eerie realism, absurd tragedy, dry sarcasm and pitch-black humour alternate.

Distorted image

It has already earned Loznitsa several festival awards. But I discover you can also look at it differently. Elena Rubashevska, a colleague from Kiev whom I met at an international meeting of film critics last year, informs me in an e-mail that she is not happy with the picture painted by Loznitsa. According to Rubashevska, who is also a filmmaker and originally from the Donbas, we are shown a seriously distorted picture. "It paints the population as stupid and aggressive barbarians, thus reinforcing dangerous stereotypes and the spread of hatred."

Without going deeper into the political issues, she would like to stress that she herself sees the Donbas as part of Ukraine. "It is an area with its own unique history, defined by the industrial landscape and what that entails." She sees residents coming from all kinds of countries and cultures, who are in favour of peace and tolerance. Rubashevska hopes to clarify that perspective with her first feature-length film Symphony of Donbas, which she is developing with support from a Swedish film fund. It is to be a poetic documentary in which she searches for the identity and cultural significance of that region.

Loznitsa

But what your take on Loznitsa's Donbass also is, all proceeds from the performances will go to Giro 999 of the Refugee Foundation, for aid to refugees from Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Sergei Loznitsa himself attracted attention with a open letter cancelling his membership of the European Film Academy. This is because he is very indignant about the lame language the EFA uses when expressing support for Ukrainian filmmakers. According to him, they are sticking their heads in the sand.

Good to know

Donbass can be seen again from 3 March. At the time of writing, screenings have been confirmed in Alkmaar, Amsterdam, Arnhem, Bussum, Deventer, Eindhoven, 's-Hertogenbosch, Hilversum, Groningen, Maastricht, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Zaandam.

For more information on the Refugee Foundation's Action for Ukraine: www.vluchteling.nl.