We might be able to read about foreign wars in U.S. newspapers, but they seem far from the average American’s consciousness. Therefore, kudos to Sergey Loznitsa and the Cannes prize-winner Donbass, for this hard-hitting look at the social breakdown in the Donbass, a region of Eastern Ukraine occupied by various criminal gangs. There, fighting is going on between the Ukrainian regular army, supported by volunteers, and separatist gangs, supported by Russian troops. It is a hybrid war, happening alongside an open armed conflict, accompanied by killings and robberies on a mass scale, and a gradual degradation of the civilian population. There is fear, deception, hatred, and violence everywhere. Based on real events, the film consists of 13 episodes, each of them narrating a story that took place in the occupied territories between 2014 and 2015.

In competition for the FIPRESCI Award.