Sergei Loznitsa
The Ukraine enters the Competition with Schastye Moe (My Joy)
The year 2010 marks the first-time entry for a Ukrainian feature film in Competition, with Schastye Moe (My Joy), director Sergei Loznitsa’s first film, in the running for the Caméra d’Or and screened at the Grand Théâtre Lumière at 22:30.
My Joy tells the story of Georgy, a lorry driver who is lost in the back country of Russia after taking the wrong exit on the highway. Confronted with a hostile group of local people, the situation quickly goes beyond his control. With the exception of this film, only Voyageurs by Igor Strembitskyy, winner of the Palme d’Or for short films in 2005, has joined the ranks of Ukrainian entries to the Festival de Cannes.
This situation can be explained by the fact that Ukrainian cinema was for a long time assimilated under the banner of Soviet film. It took its own place on the international film scene when the country attained its independence in 1991. But a large part of the nation’s production on screen diminished with arrival of foreign productions coming out of the US and Russia. The decade of 2000 nevertheless marked a serious revival of Ukrainian cinema. 14 films were announced last year compared to one per year over the preceding decade. Among these films, My Joy stands out because of its Naturalistic approach. To transcribe on screen the disenchantment of the countries of Eastern Europe, director Sergei Loznitsa filmed exclusively under natural light and with non-professional actors he met while on location searches.
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