Sergei Loznitsa made a speech in France against the boycott of Russian culture

At the Cannes Film Festival, France Culture awards took place. Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, receiving a reward for his contribution to cinema, made a speech in which he reflected on the Russian culture to boycott Russian culture after the Russian Federation attacking Ukraine.

Sergey Loznitsa on the presentation of the awards France Culture

The speech of Sergei Loznitsa at the award of the France Culture Award

Dear ladies and gentlemen! It is a great honor for me to get this award. I thank Madame Sandrin Trinh and her colleagues from France Culture for a high assessment of my work in the cinema, for the support of my views and my position.

For all of us, culture is a matter of life, and today we all ended up on the front line. On the one hand, those who demand to ban Russian cinema, and indeed completely “cancel” Russian culture. On the other hand, those who are against the total boycott of culture.

Immediately after the start of Russian aggression in Ukraine, I opposed the total ban on Russian cinema and against the boycott of Russian culture. Some of my compatriots responded to this with the requirement to boycott my films - in particular, films about the current and past wars - Donbass, Maidan, Babi Yar. Context. It is amazing that several years ago the same films - Donbass and Maidan were already banned. This happened in totalitarian Russia, by order of the FSB. Today, Ukrainian "activists" demand to cancel the shows of these films in the Democratic European Union. We have to state with a regret that in some matters their position coincides with the position of the Russian FSB.

In Russian, the heroic defenders of the island of Zmein explained to Russian aggressors where they should go

Unfortunately, the Cannes Festival was also on the front line today.

As far as I know, only once in the 75-year history of the Cannes festival, his leadership received a letter from the head of the State Cinema Foundation demanding to remove a citizen of this state from the program. This happened in 1969 with the film by Andrei Tarkovsky "Andrei Rublev."

This year the same story happened to my film The "natural history of destruction" of the production of Germany, Lithuania and the Netherlands, whose premiere will take place the day after tomorrow. The film about the problem that again has become monstrously relevant in the war that Russia wages in Ukraine: is it possible to use the peaceful civilian population and the space of human life as a resource of war? It turns out that the heads of organizations supporting Ukrainian cinema, this problem does not bother. They are only worried that a citizen of Ukraine dared to express an opinion opposite to the opinion of the majority. They wage war on their own, special front - not on where the fate of Europe is decided, modern civilization and, possibly, of all mankind, but where state construction is replaced by a war of cultures, where knowledge of its own history is replaced by myth -making, where freedom of speech and freedom of self -expression is declared enemy propaganda.

The events of these three military months, and that aggression that not only individual cultural institutions have been subjected and subjected to: museums, theaters, cinemas, galleries, but the authors themselves - directors, actors, conductors, artists, musicians - require reflection and serious conversation. We need to understand: what is happening? And who needs it?

The requirement of the prohibition of culture is equivalent to the requirement of the prohibition of language. The requirement is as immoral as it is crazy

Language is one of the most important and fundamental categories of culture. In the language and with the help of language, the worldview of a person is formed and expressed. The requirement of the prohibition of culture is equivalent to the requirement of the prohibition of language. The requirement is as immoral as it is crazy. How can you prohibit a language in which 350 million people talk on the globe? I am now addressing you in my native language, in which I spoke in my hometown of Kyiv since childhood. In this language, most refugees from the eastern regions of Ukraine speaks. In the same language, the heroic defenders of the island of Zmein explained to Russian aggressors where they should go. Modern Ukraine is a multinational and multicultural country. The requirement of the boycott of Russian -speaking culture, which is also both the achievement and the wealth of Ukraine, archaic and destructively in nature. Moreover, it fundamentally contradicts the European principles of cultural pluralism and freedom of expression. Instead of putting the Russian language, a native language for 30 percent of the citizens of the country, in the service of Ukraine, speaking the truth about a terrible war on it, "cultural activists" are exhausted from meaningless, Sisyphus of labor - to destroy what is indestructible.

One gets the impression that by "culture" these people mean a simple set of individual works - films, novels, performances, paintings, etc. But this is not so.

Culture is human activity in its various manifestations, these are the rituals and practices of our life, these are forms and methods of human self -knowledge and self -expression, it is our memory and practice of its preservation and reproduction. And, in the end, culture is cultivation, it is development. I think that to all of you - the employees of France Culture, the cartridges and friends of this wonderful organization - this is well known.

How is it possible in response to barbarism, which are performed by Putin’s regime with the hands of Russian vandals in Ukraine, to demand to destroy or cancel what has always opposed barbarism?

How can you fight against all this? How can the atrocities committed by the current Russian regime be identified (in fact, over the past hundred years in Russia other regimes, except the villains, have not happened) with the creations of those Russian authors, often outcasts and almost always - mournful prophets in their unhappy country, which have become part of world culture, and therefore the property of all of humanity? How is it possible in response to barbarism, which are performed by Putin’s regime with the hands of Russian vandals in Ukraine, to demand to destroy or cancel what has always opposed barbarism? There is no logic or meaning in this.

The French philosopher Rena Girard writes: “Only the person who prevents us from satisfying the desire is the object of genuine hatred-despite the fact that he himself inspired. The hatching hates primarily himself and hides his hidden worship. Trying to hide from others and from himself this desperate admiration, he refuses to see something except the obstacle. The plan and completely blocks the original, consisting in a religious imitation. "

What is happening to us? What happens to the culture? I believe that it is with the help of constructive and deep discussion, and not an ultimatic postulation of various prohibitions, one can come to understanding. And if we are talking about cinema, then, it seems to me, the European film academy can become a platform for the All -European Conference with the participation of philosophers, anthropologists, cinema historians, cultural studies, film experts, directors and scriptwriters to discuss this very serious problem.

Stefan Zweig recalls the atmosphere of the First World War in his memoirs: “France and England” was conquered in Vienna and Berlin, at the Ringstrasse and Friedrichstrasse, which was much simpler. The English, French inscriptions should have disappeared, even the monastery “to the angelic Vires” was forced to change the name, because the people were indignant, not suspecting, not suspecting, not suspecting, not suspecting, not suspecting, not suspecting What “angelic” suggested angels, and not Anglo-Saxons. Shakespeare was removed from the German theater, Mozart and Wagner - from the French, English music halls, German professors declared Dante a German, the French - Beethoven Belgian, thoughtlessly requisitioning spiritual heritage from enemy countries, like grain or ore. Not content with the fact that daily thousands of civilians of these countries killed each other at the front, in the rear of enemy countries they reproached and discredited mutually their great dead, who have quietly rested in their graves for hundreds of years. ”

Does it remind you of anything?

Fate gave me several years of friendship with the Great Iren Weisayite, a Lithuanian Jew, who was saved from the Kaunas ghetto, the professor of theaters and a specialist in German literature, the comrade -in -arms of George Soros and the outstanding public figure of Lithuania. Irena somehow recalled that in the ghetto she and her teenage friends organized an underground circle of German poetry. In the evenings, they gathered secretly and read to each other the verses of Goethe, Heine, Schiller. "But how is it? After all, the speech of German executioners sounded around you every day?" I exclaimed. Irena looked at me with amazement: "Yes, but what was it to do with Goethe?!"

Only a few such a gift of mental wisdom is given, only units can reach such humanity, only real heroes are capable of nobility. But each of us, people of culture, must make an effort in order to withstand barbarism in any of its manifestations. They often ask me - what should the artist do during the war? My answer is simple - to maintain common sense and protect culture.

Thank you.

On May 23, the premiere of the documentary of the documentary of Sergei Loznitsa "Natural History of Destruction" will be held at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is mounted from archival materials about carpet bombing of European cities during the Second World War.