Director’s Diary is a sweeping five-hour cinematic journey merging historical memory, spiritual introspection and experimental narration.
Entirely penned and directed by Sokurov himself, Director’s Diary is described as “a historical panorama spanning several hours, yet extremely dynamic and captivating.” Pen and camera blend seamlessly to form a dense flow of visual and semantic imagery (what the filmmaker defines as “a spiritual biography”), inviting inner reflection through a rich tapestry of faces and stories that collectively form an impressionistic portrait of the world seen from Russia.
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“This is neither journalism nor politics. It is an attempt at an artistic interpretation of the times, a humanistic endeavor to gather the stones scattered by our predecessors. It is a portrayal, through lyrical and dramatic means, of the sense of time in which I and my compatriots—I mean Soviet people—lived, and of the shared anxieties we experienced back then. And it is not only about how the small city of Leningrad lived, but also about what was happening around Leningrad and throughout the world. This is a film about working people, about factories, about peasants, about culture, about science, about technology, about machinery—about the elements that made up the life of this small, yet truly great city. The film features a lot of music and a wealth of historical documents about events in the world and in the city. “Even for foreign viewers, there are many facts about their own lives—things they have long forgotten or perhaps never paid attention to,” says Alexander Sokurov about his film.
Source: https://www.proficinema.com/mainnews/festival/detail.php?ID=447338
