Imperium

From Viennale

In the 1970s, a small group of Italian cinematographers were permitted to document everyday life across the USSR. Filming under the supervision of Soviet authorities, they nevertheless pursued an independent gaze—one that slipped through the gaps of the propaganda machine. A master in deconstructing archival material, Sergei Loznitsa transforms this unseen footage into an epic portrait of a failed utopia: a world of almost unimaginable scale whose collapse continues to resonate in Russia and beyond with devastating consequences. As always, Loznitsa avoids commentary, allowing the images themselves to reveal the layers of meaning and ambiguity they have accumulated over time. Focusing primarily on the diverse cultures and ethnic minorities of the vast country, IMPERIUM is bookended by images of Moscow and Leningrad as imperial centres. This structure makes the film’s postcolonial dimension all the more palpable, while questioning the mainstream image of the Soviet empire as a uniform universe. In fact, Loznitsa points to quite the opposite: the immanent cracks within the system, the subtle gaps between the private and the public, between the staged and the real—those liminal spaces where life evades power and control. (Evgeny Gusyatinskiy)