Sergei Loznitsa
Sergei Loznitsa (, , ) (born 5 September 1964) is a Russian director known for his documentary as well as dramatic films. Biography. Loznitsa was born on 5 September 1964 in the city of Baranavichy, in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. At that time the BSSR was part of the Soviet Union. Later the Loznitsa family moved to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he completed high school. Loznitsa graduated from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute as a mathematician in 1987. Between 1987 and 1991 he worked at the Institute of Cybernetics, where he developed expert systems, systems of design-making and artificial intelligence. Loznitsa also  worked as a translator from Japanese. In 1991 he enrolled at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, in the fictional-film direction department taught by Nana Jorjadze. He graduated with honors in 1997. After completion of his studies Loznitsa began working as a documentary film director in Saint Petersburg in 2000. He and his family moved to Germany in 2001. In 2007, Loznitsa travelled to Canada to participate in the first retrospective of his films at Media City Film Festival, representing his first in person visit to North America. This screening and lecture included many of the director's lesser-known  short films focussing on his intimate depictions of the former Soviet Europe, including "Halt" (2000), "Portrait" (2002), and "Factory" (2004). Many of Loznitsa's films had North American premieres at Media City Film Festival, including "Blockade" (2005), "Artel" (2006), "Revue" (2008), "The Letter" (2012) and others before the director began to gain international prominence with major screenings at TIFF, NYFF and elsewhere. In 2010 his film "My Joy" was selected for the main competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. His 2012 film "In the Fog" competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. "Maidan" had its  world premiere in a special screening at Cannes in May 2014, a record of the 2013–14 popular protests in Kyiv and their violent suppression. His documentary ""Babi Yar. Context"" was created with help from Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center. On 28 February 2022, Loznitsa resigned from the European Film Academy in response to its statement expressing "solidarity with Ukraine" published days earlier in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In an open letter, Loznitsa condemned the academy for failing "to call a war a war, to condemn barbarity and voice your protest". On 1 March 2022, the academy announced  that it would exclude Russian films from its European Film Awards. The same day, Loznitsa spoke against this decision, saying, "many friends and colleagues, Russian filmmakers, have taken a stand against this insane war. ... They are victims as we are of this aggression", and calling to "not judge people based on their passports" but "on their acts". On 19 March 2022, it was announced that Loznitsa had been expelled from the Ukrainian Film Academy for opposing the boycott of Russian films. The academy stated that Loznitsa had "repeatedly stressed that he considers himself a cosmopolitan, 'a man of the world '. However, now, when Ukraine is struggling to defend its independence, the key concept in the rhetoric of every Ukrainian should be his national identity." Loznitsa issued a statement the same day, saying, "I was astonished to read of the Ukrainian film academy's decision to expel me for being a "cosmopolite". ... It is only during the late Stalinist era, from the onset of the antisemitic campaign unleashed by Stalin between 1948 and 1953, that the term acquired a negative connotation in Soviet propaganda discourse. By speaking out against cosmopolitanism, the Ukrainian 'academy members' employ this very discourse invented by Stalin . Loznitsa called the academy's emphasis on the national identity Nazism" and a "gift to Kremlin propagandists".