‘State of Cinema 2024 - Sergei Loznitsa’

A speech and talk, followed by the screening of La bête (2023) by Bertrand Bonello

For seven years now, Bozar and the online film magazine Sabzian – which celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2024! – have asked notable personalities to write a State of Cinema article, a text that holds cinema up to the light, an invitation to reflect on what cinema means, could mean, or should mean today. This year, it is the turn of Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa to present a text. The audience will then have the honor of engaging in a discussion with this distinguished filmmaker. The conversation will be followed by a screening of a film* carefully selected by Sergei Loznitsa.

This State of Cinema event is part of a Close-up dedicated to Sergei Loznitsa (b. 1964). You'll have ample opportunity to delve into the work of this filmmaker , who grew up in Kyiv and studied at the famous film school VGIK in Moscow. In recent decades he has made more than twenty documentaries and feature films. In his documentary work, which is rooted in the rich tradition of avant-garde documentary that is so central to the history of Soviet cinema, he captures, without commentary and with a keen eye and careful editing, a Russia in transition. In 2010, Loznitsa directed his first feature film, My Joy, premiered in the official Cannes competition. In the following years, In the Fog (2012), A Gentle Creature (2017), and Donbass (2018) would follow, all three presented at Cannes. Loznitsa’s oeuvre is both poetic and political, disturbing and meditative, in direct contact with the vicissitudes of history, both large and small.

Loznitsa has chosen La bête (2023) to accompany his State of Cinema address, the tenth feature film by French director Bertrand Bonello, which had its world premiere on 3 September 2023 at the 80th Venice International Film Festival as part of the official competition. Set in the near future, where artificial intelligence reigns, human emotions have become a threat. To rid herself of them, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) must purify her DNA by delving into her past lives. There, she finds Louis (George MacKay), her great love. But fear overwhelms her – a premonition that disaster is looming.

Sergei Loznitsa will speak in Russian. Juliette Faure will provide simultaneous translation into English.​​​​​​​

Juliette Faure has a doctorate in political science and is an FNRS research fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She is the author of The Rise of the Russian Hawks: Ideology and Politics from the Late Soviet Union to Putin's Russia, a forthcoming book published by Cambridge University Press.