As with so many early films by Sokurov, this film has two dates: the first is that of its creation (the film was then banned), the second is that of the final release and legal public screening. The film consists entirely of German and Soviet archive footage from the end of the Second World War. But this material is not amassed solely for a large-scale picture of Nazi crimes but presenst an entire overview of the historical landscape after the catastrophe. Sokurov points to the psychological aspect, showing the perpetrators of crimes as also the victims of their crimes: the execution of Hitler's generals, the miserable despair of a defeated Hitler, the shame of the crowd used only to regimentation, the shame of the nation. Here Sokurov makes an unspoken comparison with the history of his own country: it was victorious in the face of Hitler, but at the same time had bred its own dictator, Stalin. The footage is numbered; dates on both sides of the frame denote the years of Hitler's and Stalin's deaths (1945 and 1953 respectively). “Je voulais faire ce film dans les années 60. J’avais alors été fortement impressionné par la vision du Fascisme ordinaire de Mikhail Romm. Mais, plutôt que d’un film politique, il s’agit finalement d’un film musical, d’une suite de documents remis en mouvement et accompagnés par Bach, Penderecki et Cherubini.” (Alexander Sokurov) Alexander Sokurov's unique style has been credited to visual splendor, hermetic intensity and sense of suspended time found with in his films. With over 30 features, documentaries and shorts to date, Alexander Sokurov has dedicated his life to his own personal search for a cinematographic language to communicate the fundamentals of human experience. Since his first feature film, THE LONELY VOICE OF MAN, 1978 (his graduation project from the Moscow Film School), Sokurov has proved himself a remarkably prolific and pioneering writer/director. His feature films in particular, (MOTHER AND SON, MOLOCH, RUSSIAN ARK, FATHER AND SON, THE SUN, ALEXANDRA to name but a few) have resonated with audiences all over the world garnering critical acclaim and major prizes on the festival circuit along the way. Sokurov is perhaps best known now for his extraordinary masterpiece, RUSSIAN ARK (2002) - a unique journey through time and Russian history-it is the first entirely unedited, single take, full-length feature film. The entire film was shot in a single day, in one recording, in a single uninterrupted Steadicam sequence. Sokurov’s most recent film, ALEXANDRA, was his fourth film to open in competition at Cannes in 2007.