Blockade

Constructed entirely from silent archival footage of the Siege of Leningrad, the film brings to life the harrowing reality of a city under siege through carefully reconstructed sound and unaltered imagery. By resisting narration or traditional storytelling, Loznitsa lets the raw visuals speak, revealing a world of quiet resilience—where starvation, death, and survival unfold in haunting detail. The result is not a retrospective, but a visceral, almost present-tense experience of human endurance amid war.

Loznitsa used only real footage from Soviet archives—no reenactments, interviews, or narration—making the film a pure visual document of the Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944).

The original footage was silent, so the film’s powerful soundscape—footsteps, gunfire, wind, distant explosions—was meticulously recreated by sound designers to match the era and actions onscreen. This adds unsettling realism to the experience.

Many critics praised the film for its ethical approach to history, refusing sensationalism or sentimentality and instead offering a stark, respectful look at one of the most devastating episodes of WWII.