Paleontology Lesson

Since the outbreak of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukrainian soil, the prolific filmmaker Sergueï Loznitsa (Mr. Landsbergis, VdR 2022) has turned his lens toward his country’s civilians as they strive to maintain “an apparently normal existence under impossible circumstances.” Through his quiet, composed portraits of daily life, Loznitsa bears witness to the unfolding existential tragedy of his people. Following The Invasion, which premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, this short essay film is like a painterly detail within a larger tableau: a group of schoolchildren visiting the Kyiv Museum of Natural History, between two air raid sirens. Fixed shots linger on the children’s faces, wide-eyed and amused as they absorb their guide’s animated storytelling and gently handle the fossils of marvellous, long-extinct creatures. This “paleontology lesson” becomes a refuge out of time, shimmering with the childlike wonder of discovery, even as, just beyond the museum walls, Russian missiles attempt to write a bitter and bloody new chapter in the story of “evolution.”

Emmanuel Chicon

Paleontology Lesson, 2025
The Invasion, 2024
The Kiev Trial, 2022
The Natural History of Destruction, 2022
Mr Landsbergis, 2021
Babi Yar. Context, 2021
A Night at the Opera, 2020
State Funeral, 2019
The Trial, 2018
Donbass, 2018
Victory Day, 2018
A Gentle Creature, 2017
Austerlitz, 2016
The Event, 2015
The Old Jewish Cemetery, 2014
Maidan, 2014
Reflections, 2014
Letter, 2013
O Milagre de Santo António, 2012
In the Fog, 2012
My Joy, 2010
Northern Light, 2008
Revue, 2008
Artel, 2006
Blockade, 2005
Factory, 2004
Landscape, 2003
Portrait, 2002
Settlement, 2001
The Train Stop, 2000
Life, Autumn, 1998
Today We Are Going To Build A House, 1996