Sergei Loznitsa Returns to Fiction with Two Prosecutors
Sergei Loznitsa built his reputation as a filmmaker by making several documentaries, and when he moved to fiction he burst onto the scene with My Joy in 2010. After In the Fog (2012), Two Prosecutors is his third selection in Competition.
In Two Prosecutors, the Ukrainian director takes us back to the Stalinist purges in Russia and adapts physicist and Gulag survivor Georgy Demidov’s novel by the same name. The film follows a newly appointed prosecutor asking to meet a prisoner who has been a victim of corrupt agents of the secret police. He then dives into the depths of a totalitarian regime that does not bear said name.
Since studying filmmaking in the early 1990s, Sergei Loznitsa bridges the documentary and fiction genres. With his meticulous attention to detail, he and his movies bear witness to old and current conflicts, from Soviet scars to the ongoing war with Russia.
In last year’s The Invasion, presented in Un Certain Regard, he documented this conflict by showcasing vignettes of daily life in war-torn Ukraine. Ten years prior, his camera was already chronicling the seeds of the conflict in the documentary Maidan, deriving its name from the location of the protests against the pro-Russian president Yanukovych, and which was presented in a Special Screening in 2014.
While making his mark with edgy experimental documentaries, Sergei Loznitsa successfully transitioned to fiction. His first feature film, My Joy, a road movie presented in Competition in 2010, lays the groundwork for his detailed, yet ambitious style, which blends social violence and dark humor. At the time, he said, “I wanted to create a love story, but as often happens with Russians, regardless of the project, you end up with a Kalashnikov.”
These proved to be fateful words.