Two Prosecutors, the new film by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, was presented in official competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and will be released in French theaters on November 5, 2025. A regular at the Croisette, Loznitsa has already unveiled My Joy (2010), In the Fog (2012, FIPRESCI Prize), A Gentle Creature (2017), and Donbass (2018, Best Director Award – Un Certain Regard).
Inspired by a short story that was banned for forty years, Two Prosecutors delves intothe Soviet Union of 1937, at the time of Stalin's great purges. Thousands of letters from unjustly accused prisoners are destroyed, but one of them finds its way onto the desk of a young idealistic prosecutor. Convinced of a miscarriage of justice, he embarks on a quest for truth that takes him to the heart of power, facing a regime that crushes any attempt at justice.
Written and directed by Sergei Loznitsa, the film stars Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Aleksandr Filippenko, and Anatoliy Belyy. Shot in a disused prison in Riga dating from 1905, the feature film stands out for its static and oppressive aesthetic: static shots, a limited palette of grays and browns, and a square format reminiscent of period archives. Loznitsa combines documentary rigor with a tragic dimension in a mise-en-scène inspired by Kafka and Gogol.
Adapted from a text by physicist and writer Georgy Demidov, a former Gulag prisoner, the film explores the mechanisms of totalitarianism and the loss of moral bearings in a system based on fear. The filmmaker reminds us that these abuses, although rooted in the past, still resonate in the contemporary world.
Two Prosecutors
Film | 2025
In theaters November 5, 2025
Drama, History | Running time: 1h58
By Sergei Loznitsa | Starring Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Aleksandr Filippenko, Anatoliy Belyy
Original title: Zwei Staatsanwälte
Nationality: Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania
Two Prosecutors offers a chilling insight into the Soviet bureaucratic machine, between the quest for truth and disillusionment, carried by precise and austere direction.
To extend your cinema experience, check out November's new releases, films to see right now, and our selection of historical films of the year.
