Award-winning director to offer Normanites a glimpse into Joseph Stalin's funeral at screening

Mar. 11—A renowned Ukrainian filmmaker will visit the University of Oklahoma for a public event to screen his documentary about Joseph Stalin.

Sergei Loznitsa, an internationally acclaimed film director, has won awards for his films at Cannes Film Festival, Krakow Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Cairo International Film Festival, among many others.

His documentary, "State Funeral," which will show 6p.m. Wednesday, March 13 at Gaylord Hall, Room 1140, 395 W. Lindsey Street, premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival in September 2019.

A discussion with the filmmaker will follow the screening.

Dustin Condren, assistant professor of Russian and affiliated faculty in film and media studies, said it is an honor for the university to host Loznitsa, who's 2018 movie "Donbass" was selected as the Ukrainian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, though the organization didn't nominate it.

"It is just extremely rare and exciting to get a filmmaker of the caliber of Sergei Loznitza in Norman," Condren said. "It's impressive that he'll be sitting in the audience with us as we watch the film and that he'll be available for questions afterward."

Emily Johnson, professor of Russian and co-director of the Romanoff Center for Russian Studies, said the event is open to anyone who wants to attend.

"He's extremely well known. And he's a very unique and innovative filmmaker who makes films on very hard subjects," Johnson said. "He makes both fiction films and documentary films, but he is most famous for his documentary films."

"State Funeral" implements what Johnson referred to as "found footage."

"When Joseph Stalin died in 1953, Soviet leaders thought it was very important to document the funeral and in fact, they took all of the available film stock in the Soviet Union and to some extent Eastern Europe," Johnson said.

Condren said that after Stalin died, the country moved from a totalitarian state to a more bureaucratic one, which meant having to reconcile its history with Stalin as a ruthless dictator.

He said Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of Russians.

At the time of Stalin's funeral, Johnson said the attitude surrounding Stalin was different.

"After Stalin died, the Soviet Union entered a process of de-Stalinization," Johnson said. "His body was removed from the mausoleum. All of a sudden monuments to Stalin were being taken down and all of this footage was put on a shelf in an archive and hadn't been seen really for decades until Loznitza found it and edited it."

In the documentary, attendees are seen mourning over the loss of their leader.

"This footage shows thousands and thousands of ordinary Soviet citizens pouring through where they could see Stalin's body, and their faces end up in some level dominating the film," Johnson said. "Looking back at Stalin, people will say one thing regarding how they felt at the time, but this footage gives you a sense of how they felt when you see those faces."

Johnson said watching the movie gives spectators an opportunity to think about hard questions.

"How does a totalitarian society work? How do people relate to a totalitarian power?" she said.

Johnson said the movie differs from the kinds of documentaries most Americans are used to where viewers are given a narrative and told what to think. Instead, "State Funeral" offers a window into Oct. 31, 1961, and people can decide for themselves what to make of it.

"One of the things that's so striking about it is that the footage is so crisp and so clear, and it is presented in such a way through restoration and editing that makes you feel like you are watching the events unfold, and there was very meticulous sound design," Condren said.

Brian King covers education and politics for The Transcript. Reach him at bking@normantranscript.com.