Donbass Triumphs at Cannes 2018 as Ukrainian Director Earns Top Prize

Cannes Film Festival program “Un Certain Regard”, chaired by actor and director Benicio del Toro, awarded the prize for best director to Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa for the drama film “Donbass”.

“Un Certain Regard” is the second most important program of the Cannes Film Festival.

Director Sergei Loznitsa could not attend the ceremony of announcing the winners. On his behalf, an appeal was read out in which he spoke in support of the director Oleg Sentsov, who was illegally sentenced in Russia. The appeal was greeted with applause.

The world premiere of the drama film “Donbass” was held on May 9.

Presenting his film in Cannes, Sergei Loznica thanked his “favorite film festival for the opportunity to share this story with an international audience.”

Ukrainian production group, including producer Denis Ivanov, actors Natalya Buzko, Georgy Deliev, Vadim Dubovsky, Sergei Smeyan and Lyudmila Smorodina attended the premiere.

The drama film “Donbass” was created jointly by Ukraine, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Romania. Filming took place this winter in Krivoy Rog (Dnipropetrovsk oblast).

The story, which lasts 2 hours and 1 minute takes place in the eastern Ukraine, where “the Ukrainian army, Russian troops and other military formations are battling” against the background of social decay and robbery. The stories show corruption, forgery andwork of foreign journalists in the Donbass is demonstrated.

S. Loznica is one of the most famous Ukrainian film and documentary filmmakers in the world. His film “My Happiness” (2010) was the first Ukrainian tape since independence, which took part in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival. Also in the official program of Cannes there were premieres of other featured films by S. Loznitsa – “Maidan” (2014) and “Mild” (2017).

EMPR

Source: capital.ua