Soviet Union, 1937: A newly appointed, idealistic young prosecutor is spurred to meet a prison inmate after reading a desperate appeal scrawled in blood. The prosecutor recognizes this prisoner as a former law school professor—and is told a mortifying account of abuse and betrayal perpetrated by the secret police. He promises to report this injustice to the Attorney General in Moscow, but doesn’t realize the bureaucratically murderous trap he’s stepped into. Based upon a long-unpublished novella by Soviet gulag survivor Georgy Demidov, Two Prosecutors paints a hypnotic, chilling, blackly comic portrait of the mechanisms of Great Purge-era tyranny, with a potent contemporary resonance.
Moderated by Liesl Gerntholtz, Managing Director, PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center, the Q&A features filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa. The run time is 118 minutes.
Professional members of PEN America can avail discounted tickets. Visit the member benefits page for more info >>
Liesl Gerntholtz is the managing director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center at PEN America. She is a South African human rights lawyer who spent the early part of her career working for the South African Human Rights Commission and the Commission on Gender Equality in post-apartheid South Africa. She was the head of the HIV Litigation Unit of the AIDS Law Project and the Director of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre. In those capacities, she led high impact, strategic litigation to advance the human rights of people living with HIV and women affected by violence. She has lived in the US since 2008, but remains committed to her South African roots, serving on the boards of several South African human rights organisations.
Sergei Loznitsa was born on September 5th, 1964. He grew up in Kiev (Ukraine), and in 1987, graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic with a degree in Applied Mathematics. From 1987 to 1991, he worked as a scientist at the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, specializing in artificial intelligence research. In 1997, Loznitsa graduated from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. Sergei Loznitsa has been making films since 1996, and by now has directed 28 award-winning documentaries and five fiction films. Loznitsa’s feature debut MY JOY (2010) premiered in the main competition at the Festival de Cannes, and was followed by the feature film IN THE FOG” (2012), which was awarded FIPRESCI prize at the 65th Festival de Cannes. In 2017, Sergei Loznitsa presented his third feature A GENTLE CREATURE in the competition of the Festival de Cannes. In 2018, Loznitsa received the prize for Best Directing of the Un Certain Regard section of Festival de Cannes for his fourth feature film, DONBASS. In 2013, Sergei Loznitsa founded a film production company ATOMS & VOID. Sergei Loznitsa’s feature-length documentary MAIDAN (2014), the chronicles of the Ukrainian revolution, had its world premiere at a Séance Special of Festival de Cannes. His subsequent feature length documentaries, THE EVENT (2015), AUSTERLITZ (2016), THE TRIAL (2018), and STATE FUNERAL (2019) were presented at the Special Screenings of the Venice Film Festival. In 2021, Sergei received a Special Jury Prize of the L’Oeil D’Or Award in Cannes for his film BABI YAR. CONTEXT. His most recent fiction film, TWO PROSECUTORS (2025), had its world premiere in competition at the Festival de Cannes and won the Prix François Chalais, which rewards films dedicated to the values of journalism. Sergei Loznitsa continues to work on both documentary and fiction projects.