Babi Yar. Context

Synopsis

In the fall of 1941, German troops, assisted by the Nazi-directed Ukrainian Police and with little resistance from the local population, shot dead 33,771 Jewish people in the Babi Yar ravine in northwest Kiev. In his latest nonfiction masterwork, Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa (State Funeral, Donbass, Maidan) uses meticulously restored and brilliantly assembled archival footage and evocative sound design to investigate the horrifying historical episode, bringing the past into a palpable present. Winner of a Special Mention at this year’s Cannes, Babi Yar. Context chronicles with enthralling and extraordinary detail the frightening ease with which a people and a place can fall under totalitarian control.