State Funeral (2019 film)

2019 film

State Funeral

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Directed by| Sergei Loznitsa
Written by| Sergei Loznitsa
Produced by|

* Sergei Loznitsa
* Maria Choustova

Edited by| Danielius Kokanauskis

Production
companies

* Atoms & Void
* Studio Uljana Kim
* Nutprdukce
* Current Time TV

Distributed by| Cinema Prestige (Russia)

Release dates

* September 6, 2019 (2019-09-06) (Venice)
* November 22, 2019 (2019-11-22) (Lithuania)

Running time

| 135 minutes
Countries|

* Netherlands
* Lithuania

Language| Russian
Box office| $48,003[1]

State Funeral (Russian: Государственные похороны, romanized: Gosudarstvennye pohorony) is a 2019 internationally co-produced documentary film by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa. It examines the ceremony and aftermath of Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1929 to his death in 1953.

## Individuals shown in archive footage

[edit]

* Joseph Stalin
* Lavrentiy Beria
* Nikita Khrushchev
* Georgy Malenkov
* Vyacheslav Molotov
* Nikolai Bulganin
* Dolores Ibárruri
* Enlai Zhou
* Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal
* Valko Chervenkov
* Walter Ulbricht

## Release

[edit]

State Funeral premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival on 6 September 2019, and the Toronto International Film Festival a week later on the 13th. It saw theatrical exhibition in Lithuania starting on 22 November 2019, and continued through film festivals and other territories before a limited release in the United States on 7 May 2021, before a streaming release on MUBI two weeks later, available also in Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, Latin America, New Zealand, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

## Reception

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On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 7.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "If State Funeral risks repetitiveness in its patient approach, the glimpse of history it offers remains a fascinating -- and frightening -- look at life under a totalitarian regime."[2] Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[3]

Award  | Category  | Recipient(s)  | Result  | Ref.

|
|
|
|

Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival | Depth of Field Competition  | Sergei Loznitsa | Nominated  | [4]
Depth of Field Competition - Honorable Mention  | Won
IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival  | Silvestre Award (Best Feature Film)  | Nominated  | [5]
National Lithuania Film Awards  | Best Co-Production Film  | Sergei Loznitsa
Atoms & Void  | Nominated  | [6]
Audience Award  | Nominated
Best Film Editing  | Danielius Kokanauskis
Atoms & Void  | Nominated
Best Sound Mixing  | Vladimir Golovnitskiy
Atoms & Void  | Won
Russian Guild of Film Critics | White Elephant (Best Documentary)  | Sergei Loznitsa  | Nominated  | [7]
31st Stockholm International Film Festival | Bronze Horse  | Nominated  | [8]
Wiesbaden goEast | Best Documentary  | Won  | [9]

## References

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1. ^ "State Funeral (2019)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
2. ^ "State Funeral (2021)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
3. ^ "State Funeral (2021)". Metacritic. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
4. ^ "DocAviv Film Festival (2020)". IMDb. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
5. ^ "IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival (2020)". IMDb. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
6. ^ "National Lithuania Film Awards (2021)". IMDb. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
7. ^ "Russian Guild of Film Critics (2021)". IMDb. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
8. ^ "Stockholm International Film Festival (2020)". IMDb. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
9. ^ "Wiesbaden goEast (2020)". IMDb. Retrieved 6 January 2023.

## External links

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* State Funeral at IMDb