In ‘State Funeral,’ filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa examines the personality cult of Joseph Stalin
The Hindu
Set against one of the pivotal moments of world history, Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary flips through pages of the past to map the present
On March 5, 1953, the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was announced to the people by Yury Levitan, a Soviet radio announcer who was active during and after the Second World War. Reading from the communiqué, it was reported that Levitan announced that the “Father of Nations” was dead. A state funeral was given to Stalin and four days of national mourning was declared. On March 6, Stalin’s body was displayed at the Hall of Columns in the House of Trade Unions, where it remained for the next three days for hundreds of thousands of mourners, mostly clad in black, to pay respects to their revered leader. The proceedings witnessed at the funeral are now part of history, but the idea of Stalin and the near-pompous show put on by his comrades-in-arms, is the subject behind Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary State Funeral (2019), which will be available on Mubi starting this Friday.More Related News