Babi Yar Context

Winner of the L’Oeil d’Or for Best Documentary, 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

In honour of Holocaust Education Week 2022, TJFF is proud to partner with the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre to screen this award-winning documentary. 

Over a two-day period in September 1941, the Nazis, in collaboration with Ukrainian collaborators, massacred nearly 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar in Kyiv. Using entirely archival footage, Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa meticulously reconstructs and visualizes the historical context of this event, as it documents the German occupation of Ukraine and the subsequent decade.

Similar to his previous acclaimed archival collage films, such as State Funeral, a reconstruction of Stalin’s funeral procession and The Trial about the 1930s Moscow show trials, Babi Yar. Context eschews traditional voice-over or talking-head commentary and allows the astonishing archival material to stand as evidence, resulting in a “wrenching and revelatory collage.” (A.O Scott, New York Times)

“A stunning documentary…shows us arresting archival footage, supplemented with sound design.” — PJ Grisar, Forward