Blockade – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

Sergey Loznitsa’s editing masterpiece consists solely of archival films from the WWII siege of Leningrad discovered in Moscow’s archives and features a meticulously reconstructed state-of-the-art soundtrack added to the original silent footage. The result gives viewers an eerie impression of being not an observer, but virtually a participant in the events as they unfold in Leningrad’s reanimated reality.

As images of the city boldly holding out slowly give way to an increasingly macabre reality, they nevertheless remain at the highest aesthetic level and indicate a fluency in the European iconographic tradition. Blockade is testimony to the artistic excellence of Soviet cinematographers.