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Directed by Sergei Loznitsa
2014, 131 minutes
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Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, Maidan chronicles the civil uprising that toppled the government of Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich and has since developed into an international crisis between Russia and the West. Filmed in stunning long takes, sans commentary, Maidan is a record of a momentous historical event and an extraordinary study of the popular uprising as a social, cultural and philosophical phenomenon.
Beginning in November 2013, when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens gathered in Kiev's Independence Square (Maidan) to protest Yanukovich's refusal to establish closer ties with the West, Loznitsa and his cameraman were there, capturing the peaceful rallies, demonstrations, speeches and songs.
As Loznitsa notes, 'The euphoric atmosphere of the early days of Maidan felt so comforting and empowering that it felt like being in a maternal womb. Never before have I seen or experienced such solidarity, camaraderie and such an authentic spirit of freedom. It was amazing to see so many volunteers working together in such a harmony and with such zeal. Everybody seemed to be busy: guarding Maidan, helping out in the kitchens, providing medical assistance, performing on the stage of Maidan, coordinating volunteers. The night of December 19th, St Nicholas's feast, felt like a medieval folk carnival ' a free spirit of the nation, awakening from a long sleep.'
In January 2014, following an ultimatum from the government to disperse, riot police stormed the square. Maidan captures the bloody street battles that erupted, the fires that raged throughout the night, and the make-shift funerals for the dead.
Eschewing the conventions of traditional talking heads documentaries, Maidan plunges the viewer into the middle of this revolution for a startling and immediate portrait of an awakening nation, rediscovering its identity.
2015 Russia Eastern Europe Political Science Sociology Cinema Studies
* Official Selection, Cannes Film Festival
* Official Selection, Toronto Film Festival
"An impressive, bold treatment of a complex subject. One of the few documentaries about a recent revolution that won't feel dated in five years." - Variety
"Breathtaking." - Reuters
"Masterful. Should be required viewing for any director wanting to understand how rioters move and behave (it"s mostly not the way we"ve seen it in the movies)." - Screen Daily
"Harkens back to the heroic, journalistic roots of documentary-making and yet feels ineffably modern and formally daring. If the communards in Paris in 1871 had owned top-grade digital cameras, they would have made a movie much like Maidan." " Hollywood Reporter
"A vital and urgent film." " The Guardian
"Starkly beautiful. Succeeds in chronicling a remarkable historical moment and delivering an emotional wallop." " Cinema Scope
"Easily the most rigorous, vital, and powerful movie of 2014....a testament to the human experience of resistance." - Village Voice
"Maidan is gorgeous if stark. It never crosses the line into aestheticizing the revolution, the suffering and brutality that come along with it. Its artfulness stems from obsessive precision. You register Maidan just as you do the well-known paintings of horror from, say, the Spanish Civil War and the French Revolution: Not an interpretation, but an artwork capturing the truth of a historic moment." " Filmmaker Magazine
"This is monumental filmmaking – part document, part cinematic Guernica that takes a historical moment and shows the great ambiguities of political upheaval and the fundamental tensions between idealism and reality at the heart of all movements." - Sight & Sound
"The entire film is presented in long takes, with no commentary, providing viewers with an unmediated opportunity to explore the resistance, the solidarity, and the mourning. Loznitsa has produced an archive of the opposition to the Yanukovich government and the collective memory of the bloody aftermath. A must-watch for anyone interested in understanding the dynamics involved in this contentious region." — Library Journal