Ukraine selects an absurdist film about its war-torn east for the next Academy Awards

On August 29, Ukraine's Oscar Committee announced that it has selected Sergey Loznitsa’s film “Donbass” as the country’s entry for the Best Foreign-Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards. The movie has already won praise in Europe: at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Loznitsa took home the Un Certain Regard Award for Best Director. “Donbass” shows life in the self-declared Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples’ Republics both during and after the war's most violent phase in 2014 and 2015.

It was never screened in Russia, where a mid-July limited premiere was canceled after the Culture Ministry warned that the film failed to get a distribution license from the federal government.

• Meduza’s film critic, Anton Dolin, says the movie won’t please many Russian and Ukrainian viewers, but that doesn't make the motion picture any less frightening, paradoxical, or outstanding.