Vasilina Makovtseva

The spectre of authoritarianism, totalitarianism and dictatorships has cast a pall over much of Eastern European literature and film-making for generations. It has created some dour, depressing and downbeat work. The likes of Kafka, Gogol and Dostoevsky often focussed on corruption and the layered inanity of unmitigated bureaucracy. Sergey Loznitsa’s new film, A Gentle Creature, …