Zhurakovskaya – Loznitsa: If you are a cosmopolitan, you do not need to position yourself as a Ukrainian director

Ukrainian actress Olesya Zhurakovskaya spoke about the position of director Sergei Loznitsa, who was expelled with a scandal from the Ukrainian Film Academy. In an interview with TV presenter Alina Dorotyuk for the YouTube project “On the Hour”, the artist admitted that she was surprised by the ambiguous statements of Loznitsa, who called himself a Ukrainian director.

– I personally know him and starred in his film “Donbass”. For this role, I was nominated for the “Gold Jiga” award, – said Olesya. – To be honest, I am amazed by his position, these ambiguous speeches …. Because the man spoke with pride about positioning himself as a Ukrainian director. I don’t understand at all…. this is participation in the festival “From Lviv to the Urals”, which does not fit into the paradigm of a normal Ukrainian at all. He's cosmopolitan, okay. Then you don't need to position yourself as a Ukrainian director. That's it.

When asked by the presenter what she thinks about the position of the artists who actively toured in the Russian Federation, and in the eighth year of the war they began to help Ukraine, Zhurakovskaya answered as follows:

– Before they started transferring money (to help the Ukrainians – Auth.), how much did they do to get the Russian army here? Let's put on one side of the scale the money they're now paying out of their millions in royalties and what they did to get these bastards in here. For example, I heard a lot how Sveta Loboda complained about the fact that nationalists were running around her house, did not let her live in Ukraine when she entered the Russian market, new frontiers. I didn't listen to them and wouldn't want to start. I believe that people at one time made a choice. What's the discussion here?

The essence of the question

At the end of March, a scandal erupted in the network. Loznitsa was announced as one of the participants of the Russian festival in France under the loud slogan “From Lviv to the Urals”. Representatives of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Film Academy expelled the director from the organization, calling such a position unacceptable during the Russian military invasion of our country.

In May, the director received the France Culture award from the Cannes Film Festival for his contribution to cinema and delivered a speech against the boycott Russian culture.