Sergei Loznitsa will be one of the guest speakers at the Spring Seminar 2023 dedicated to the theme of Editing. In this context, Cineclube EA added to the program one of the director's most important films. The session will happen on May 12th at Cinema Passos Manuel. Loznitsa will be present for a Q&A session after the screening. This session is organized in partnership with Festival Porto/Post/Doc. Access to this screening is free.
In August 1991, an attempted coup d'état led by a group of communists ended the Soviet regime that had lasted for seven decades. The USSR collapsed and the tricolor flag of the Russian Federation was raised over the Kremlin. As President Gorbachev was detained by the coup leaders, state radio and television channels were playing Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" and thousands of protesters gathered outside the White House in Moscow, preparing to defend the democratic opposition led by Boris Yeltsin. A quarter of a century after these events Sergei Loznitsa revisits the dramatic events of August 1991 and reflects on an event known worldwide as the birth of “Russian Democracy”. But what actually happened that month? What were the forces that guided the crowds to Palace Square in Leningrad? What are we actually witnessing: the collapse or the creative reformulation of the regime? Who are these people looking at the camera: winners or victims?