In the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine, mid-2010s: a hybrid war
takes place, involving an open armed conflict alongside killings and
robberies on a mass scale perpetrated by Russian-separatist gangs. In
the Donbass, war is called peace, propaganda is uttered as truth, and
hatred is declared to be love. Life is suffused with fear and
suspicion. What is real and what is fake news? Called "a darkly
satirical omnibus of scathing vignettes" by the Washington Post,
DONBASS serves as a crucial interpretation of the Russo-Ukrainian war,
but the film is not, ultimately, a tale of one region or one conflict.
It is about a world lost in post-truth and fake identities. It is
about each and every one of us. "There is no other antiwar film quite
like DONBASS" (Los Angeles Times).
Followed by remarks by and a discussion with Willard Sunderland, Henry
R. Winkler Professor of Modern History in the Department of History of
the University of Cincinnati. Professor Sunderland is a historian of
Russia and the Soviet Union and specializes in the imperial history of
Russia.
The Niehoff Center at UC is pleased to bring Loznitsa’s insightful and
provocative film to Cincinnati. The film was released in 2018 but has
not previously had a theatrical release in North America.