This atrocity is the subject of Sergei Loznitsa’s latest feature documentary, Babi Yar. Context, which has its world premiere as a special screening in Cannes - and which has been made as a co-production between the Netherlands and Ukraine. Loznista wrote a script of a fiction film Babi Yar eight years ago. The script is based entirely on documents, memories, witness statements and various archive materials he managed to collect.

“During the past years, I have been researching and collecting archive footage related to the subject, and I also intend to use some of this footage in my feature film, which is still at the financing stage at the moment,” the director says. Visionary Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy (behind the controversial Dau series of films and art works) played a pivotal role in the development of the new film. Khrzhanovskiy is now the artistic director of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kiev. He suggested that Loznista should make a documentary based on the material he had already collected.

“The idea was that apart from the feature-length film, I also edit short episodes of about 3-5 minutes each, which can be exhibited in the future at the Bayni Yar Museum. We started working on the film in April last year, just as the first wave of the pandemic was in full progress, and we finished the film a few days ago,” Loznitsa explains. The director believes the new documentary is a long way removed from his other recent docs, The Trial^* (2018), about the 1930s Stalinist show trails in Moscow, and State Funeral (2019), about the Soviet hysteria and huge outpouring of grief following the death of Stalin.

“I think that this film is very different. One can of course compare it with Blockade, the film I made in 2005, based on the footage of the siege of Leningrad. Both films have scenes of public executions in them and both films deal with the darkest moments of human history of the 20th Century. Still, I think that Babi Yar. Context stands alone and, if anything, can be regarded as a sort of a draft, a “sketch” for the future feature film,” the director reflects.

“I do not think I have ever gone so far into the “heart of darkness” as I have done with this film. It touches upon some universal issues and explores the patterns of human behaviour, which cannot be attributed to any particular nation or a specific regime, but can certainly be attributed to humans at large.”

One of the ironies about the aftermath of the Babi Yar massacre was that the Soviet authorities ended up “covering the crimes of the Nazis,” as Loznitsa puts it. Anti-Semitism was rife in the USSR in the late 1940s and beyond. “The word “Jew” was a kind of taboo [in Russia], and there was no mention of Holocaust,” the director points out. This meant that when a monument was finally built honouring the victims, it was inscribed to the “Soviet citizens” who perished. (The fact that they were all Jewish was overlooked).

After its screening in Cannes, Loznitsa’s film is expected to premiere in Kiev in September as part of the commemorative programme marking the 80th anniversary of the massacre. It will also screen at the museum and will be included in the permanent collection there. Now, the director is sticking with the same subject and plans finally to shoot his dramatic feature Babi Yar next summer.

For more information on Sergei Loznitsa and Babi Yar. Context, visit his website here.

Babi Yar. Context is co-produced by Atoms & Void, visit their Facebook page here.

For more information on Cannes Film Festival, click here.
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^*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund.