From Dec 2013 until Feb 2014 the Ukrainian director Sergeï Loznitsa ( In the Fog, My Joy) recorded the unfolding of a revolution as the crowds gathered in protest in Kiev’s Independence Square and military police cracked down.
Maïdan will last beyond the current Ukrainian upheaval to stand as compelling witness and a model response to a seminal moment.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2017
Maïdan 2014
“Ukrainian director Sergeï Loznitsa’s Maïdan harkens back to the heroic, journalistic roots of documentary-making and yet feels ineffably modern and formally daring. It’s a tiny marvel of a movie that records a miraculous moment in his nation’s history. Comprised of footage shot over months from December 2013 to February 2014 in Kiev’s Maïdan Nezalezhnosti (aka Independence Square) which was ground zero for the revolution that eventually blew Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich out of the country, it serves as both an unvarnished record of what happened and a stylized, almost abstract meditation on crowds, movement and noise…
Throughout Maïdan, chunks of explanatory text (in English) on a black screen periodically provide the datelines and subheadings necessary to understand the basics of what’s seen on screen… Unsurprisingly, things hot up after the government passes the Anti-Protest Laws in January 2014, and running battles break out between the protestors and the military police…
Loznitsa and his colleagues stand steadfast in every sense… Balancing this thick-of-it immediacy, there are also some stunningly composed high long-distance shots… These moments of beauty never trivialize the bloodshed and tragedy of the events recorded here; instead they enhance the poignancy of the film, creating both a literal and metaphoric sense of distance that underscores that this was history in the making.” — Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter