State of Cinema 2024 – Extra Screening: The Invasion (2024)
The State of Cinema event on 11 December has sold out. To meet demand, Loznitsa will deliver his lecture a second time on Thursday, 12 December, at 19:00, prior to the Belgian premiere of his latest film, The Invasion (2024). Following the screening, a Q&A will take place, moderated by Aude Merlin, lecturer in political science at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), a specialist in Russia and the Caucasus, and a member of Cevipol. You can buy tickets for this additional screening at Bozar or on their website.
About The Invasion (2024)
10 years after the release of his epic film Maidan, Sergei Loznitsa resumes his Ukrainian chronicles by documenting the country’s struggle against the Russian invasion. Shot over a 2-year period, the film portrays the life of the civilian population all over Ukraine. The Invasion presents a unique and ultimate statement of Ukrainian resilience in the face of barbaric invasion. In the second part of his Ukrainian diptych, Loznitsa paints a monumental canvas of a nation determined to defend its right to exist.
Astrid Jansen: In The Invasion, some people feel that you depict the war ‘off camera’ by showing the everyday life of Ukrainians. However, this approach includes more than ever the direct experience of war itself. How do you create cinema in the midst of chaos?
Sergei Loznitsa: Culture begins with putting the world in order. Chaos is the absence of a point of view. In a state of chaos, everything is possible and everything has the same value. When one forms a structure according to certain criteria, one also formulates a vision, a point of view, in which the surrounding world is organised in a certain order. When I say “point of view”, I mean a vision.
Thus, chaos is the lack of vision. Basically, it is not only war that bears chaos. Without vision, everything around you becomes chaotic. Sounds, words, images are simply instruments. Cinema - which employs images, words, sounds and the entire body of filmic language, which has been developed throughout the existence of this art form – is also an instrument. If this instrument is used without a vision, the product of such usage will be simply adding to the existing chaos. Vision has to come before a film, and it is shaped during the process of creation of a film. Such is the nature of creative process.
Sergei Loznitsa in conversation with Astrid Jansen
