Announcing: 2025 Mosse Lectures and 10-day residency by renowned filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa
The Mosse Lectures at UC Berkeley are public humanities events with a focus on the cultural significance of visual and other media. The Berkeley series has included conversations with eminent filmmakers and writers on questions of capitalism, populism, utopian fiction, documentary poetics, and cultural memory.
This series is organized by the UC Berkeley Department of German with support from The Mosse Foundation and the George L. Mosse Program in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Co-presenting partners include the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) and the German Historical Institute.
January 30–February 8, 2025
Berlin-based filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa will join the Department of German and BAMPFA for a ten-day residency, during which time he will speak about his work in documentary, feature filmmaking, and short form. His voice as an independent filmmaker is widely respected by international film curators and critics; he is praised for his incisive work and noted for his decision to speak for positions that may challenge mainstream thought. Born in 1964 in Belarus and raised in Ukraine, Loznitsa has been making films since 1996 and is considered one of the most insightful commentators on a range of political and socioeconomic issues related to Ukraine, Russia, and the former Soviet bloc countries.
BAMPFA will present several films for which Loznitsa mined archival footage to examine and reanimate historical events, such as Babi Yar. Context about the genocide of 33,771 Jews in Kyiv in September 1941; The Natural History of Destruction, inspired by W. G. Sebald’s essay and presenting previously unseen images from World War II bombardments; and State Funeral, culled from the historical documentation of the news of Joseph Stalin’s death. Loznitsa adopts an observational style for some of his nonfiction works. For his most recent film, The Invasion, he worked with film crews stationed around Ukraine, resulting in a multifaceted portrait of Ukrainian life since the Russian invasion in 2022. The short film Factory is exemplary of his use of original camerawork. With the feature films In the Fog, Donbass, and A Gentle Creature, Loznitsa demonstrates his skill as a writer/director, interested in form as well as stories, never shying away from the hardships individuals experience.