Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa has discovered success in each scripted and documentary movies, lots of which discover the legacy of authoritarianism in Europe and its parallels with the current. His newest work, “Two Prosecutors,” is a transparent extension of these concepts, utilizing a historic thriller format to inform a narrative in regards to the Soviet Union’s authorized system that ought to resonate with anybody involved about authoritarian governments in 2026.
Per the official synopsis of “Two Prosecutors,” it’s “Soviet Union, 1937. 1000’s of letters from detainees falsely accused by the regime are burned in a jail cell. Towards all odds, certainly one of them reaches its vacation spot, upon the desk of the newly appointed native prosecutor, Alexander Kornyev. Kornyev does his utmost to satisfy the prisoner, a sufferer of brokers of the key police, the NKVD. A devoted Bolshevik of integrity, the younger prosecutor suspects foul play. His quest for justice will take him all the best way to the workplace of the Legal professional Common in Moscow. Within the age of the good Stalinist purges, that is the plunge of a person into the corridors of a totalitarian regime.”
“Two Prosecutors” is written and directed by Loznitsa, making it his first scripted movie since 2018’s “Donbass.” The forged consists of Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Alexander Filippenko, and Anatoli Beliy.
“Two Prosecutors” premiered on the 2025 Cannes Movie Pageant, the place it obtained optimistic opinions from critics earlier than happening to display screen on the Toronto and New York movie festivals.
“Loznitsa’s movies are all the time informational and exact, and if some viewers would possibly discover the dialogue-driven method clotted and impenetrable, it definitely creates an aura the place you surprise how the movie would possibly confide in these much more knowledgeable or with dwelling reminiscence of the Soviet Union,” David Katz wrote in his IndieWire evaluation. “And with Loznitsa’s Western European credentials and trade acclaim, it does flatter what audiences from that area in all probability want to have confirmed for them about life within the Jap bloc. Finally, ‘Two Prosecutors’ is sort of a excellent 50-50 cocktail of dread and dialogue, the vodka being whichever you’d select, making the inevitable really feel able to deferment, earlier than it strikes extra devastatingly than you’d even suppose.”
A Janus Movies launch, “Two Prosecutors” opens in New York Metropolis on Friday, March 20, and Los Angeles on March 27. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire unique, beneath.