The Forgotten Empire: Loznitsa's "Imperium" Reveals a USSR in Full Color Sergei Loznitsa's latest documentary, "Imperium," presents a sweeping portrait of the Soviet Union in the early 1970s.
The film's sheer scale – over three hours of footage from Italian cameramen who traveled across the vast expanse of the USSR – is remarkable, but what makes it truly noteworthy is its implications for our understanding of empires and their subjects.
The Soviet Union was often remembered as a monolith of communist ideology, but Loznitsa's film shows that this was far from the truth. Despite centralized control, regional traditions thrived in the USSR.