In collaboration with and with thanks to Imagine Filmdistributions, VERA Zienema is hosting a charity screening for Ukraine. The proceeds of tonight’s screening will be donated to Giro 999 of Stichting Vluchteling.

Donbass, by Ukrainian director Sergej Loznitsa, is set in the Donbas (the Donetsk Coal Basin) in eastern Ukraine. Separatists, backed by the Russian army and wanting to declare independence from Ukraine, have been engaged in battle with the Ukrainian army since 2014. Parts of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine originate in this conflict.

Donbass is a series of episodes in which Loznitsa shows the absurdity and inhumanity of life in the Donbas.  Each of the chapters is based on reports and YouTube videos from eastern Ukraine, which are fragments of the pro-Russian hate- and disinformation campaign that’s orchestrated from this part of the country. Successive absurdist sceneries paint a mosaic of hate and violence. Armed with pitch-black humour, Loznitsa shows that reality in the Donbas is far more incredible than propagandist fiction. With this exceptionally macabre and wry, tragicomic anti-war film, the director challenges fake-news. Rarely has a film been this relevant!

Finn