Maidan (МАЙДАН). 2014. Netherlands. Written and directed by Sergei Loznitsa. DCP courtesy Atoms & Void. In Ukrainian, Russian; English subtitles. 130 min.
Euromaidan, the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989, began in November 2013 when thousands of peaceful demonstrators took to Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) to protest the corrupt, abusive regime of then-President Viktor Yanukovych and his sudden decision not to sign a free trade and political association agreement with the European Union. Every bit the equal of Patricio Guzmán’s landmark The Battle of Chile (1976-79), Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan is the most cogent and stirring chronicle of this so-called Maidan Uprising, or Revolution of Dignity, from a civil uprising that grew to some one million protestors nationwide to a bloody crackdown that led to an estimated 108 civilian casualties and hundreds more wounded. The revolution culminated in late February, when parliament restored the 2004 Constitution and removed Yanukovych from office, though not before he secretly fled Kyiv and gained asylum in Russia. With Ukraine clawing its way back from the brink of civil war, Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula on February 27 and its annexation on March 18, paving the way for the Russo-Ukrainian war.