1926: Stride, Soviet! (Dziga Vertov) Barbara Wurm December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema From the Old to the New: Stride, Soviet! (Dziga Vertov 1926) “§68 2000 Meters in the Land of the Bolsheviks – A Kinoglaz effort about the work of ...
2006: Blockade (Sergei Loznitsa) Tatiana Efremova December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Speechless but not Silent: Blockade (Sergei Loznitsa, 2006) Is it possible to tell the story of a besieged city without the trace of an epic? Can one...
1998: Khrustalyov, My Car! (Aleksei German) Greg Dolgopolov December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema One of the most disturbing Russian films of all time, Khrustalyov, mashuni (Khrustalyov, My Car!, 1998) provides the audience with a firsthand experie...
2003: Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov) Pasquale Iannone December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Russian Ark/Russkiy kovcheg (2002 Russia 99 mins) Prod Co: Egoli Tossell Film/For a Film/The Hermitage Bridge Studio Prod: Andrei Deryabin, Jen...
1971: Trial of the Road (Aleksei German) Pasquale Iannone December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema In her 2007 study of the Russian war film, Denise J. Youngblood argues that while Soviet society was in a state of stagnation in the 1970s, the Soviet...
1989: The Asthenic Syndrome (Kira Muratova) Evgeny Gusyatinskiy December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Released in 1989, Kira Muratova’s The Asthenic Syndrome immediately became a sensation and still remains one of the most groundbreaking films of the l...
1985: Come and See (Elem Klimov) Adrian Danks December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Come and See (1985 Soviet Union 142 mins) Source: AFTRS Prod, Dir: Elem Klimov Scr: Klimov and Ales Adamovich Phot: Alexei Rodionov Mus: O. Yan...
1972: Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky) Acquarello December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Solaris (1972, USSR, 165 mins) Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky; Writer: Andrei Tarkovsky and Friedrich Gorenstein; Cinematography: Vadim Iusov; Editor: Serge...
1975: Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky) Sam Ishii-Gonzales December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) directed seven feature films over a 24-year period. Zerkalo (Mirror), released in 1975, comes at the midway point in his ...
1962: Ivan’s Childhood (Andrei Tarkovsky) Fergus Daly and Katherine Waugh December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Ivan's Childhood (1962 USSR 97mins) Source: Film Alliance Prod Co: Mosfilm Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky Scr: Vladimir Bogomolov, Michael Papava from the s...
1966: Andrei Roublev (Andrei Tarkovsky) Hamish Ford December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic film about Andrei Roublev, Russia’s most famous icon painter, is a remarkable, deeply reflexive examination of the artist’s ro...
1969: The Colour of Pomegranates (Sergei Parajanov) Rahul Hamid December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Floundering for some way to describe obtuse or complex art, critics often rely on the adjective “poetic”. It can come to mean nearly anything in this ...
1959: Ballad of a Soldier (Grigori Chukhrai) Julia Levin December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Ballad of a Soldier (1959 Soviet Union 89 mins) Source: ACMI/NLA Prod Co: Mosfilm Prod: M. Chernova Dir: Grigori Chukhrai Scr: Grigori Chukhrai...
1944: Ivan the Terrible Parts I and II (Sergei Eisenstein) Andrew Grossman December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema By the time Sergei Eisenstein completed Ivan Groznyy (Ivan the Terrible Part I) in 1944, the widespread experimentalism that had characterised the Sov...
1930: Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko) Adam Bingham December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Earth/Zemlya (1930 USSR 83 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: Wufku Dir, Scr, Ed: Alexander Dovzhenko Phot: Daniil Demutsky Art Dir: Visili Kriche...
1938: Alexander Nevsky (Sergei Eisenstein) Greg Dolgopolov December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Aleksandr Nevskiy (Alexander Nevsky) is not central to Eisenstein’s theory of montage and is not considered to be one of his most important works, at ...
1929: Arsenal (Alexander Dovzhenko) Miguel Marías December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Arsenal (1929 USSR 93 mins) Source: ACMI/NLA Prod Co: VUFKU Prod, Dir, Scr, Ed: Alexander Dovzhenko Phot: Daniil Demutsky Art Dir: Vadim Myulle...
1928: The House on Trubnaya (Boris Barnet) Greg Dolgopolov December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Boris Barnet’s Dom na Trubnoi, Mezhrabpom-Rus (The House on Trubnaya, 1928) is a masterpiece of Soviet silent cinema. It is a delightful comedy of man...
1927: The Girl with the Hatbox (Boris Barnet) Shari Kizirian December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema The first solo effort by Boris Barnet, Devushka s korobkoy (The Girl with the Hatbox) opened during a pinnacle year for silent cinema. Called “annus m...
1927: October (Sergei Eisenstein) Shari Kizirian December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema In 1926, the October Revolution Jubilee Committee pulled Sergei Eisenstein, Grigorii Aleksandrov, and cameraman Eduard Tisse away from Generalnaia Lin...
1924: The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (Lev Kuleshov) Tony Williams December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Long recognised as the pioneer of the “Kuleshov effect”, teacher of future cinematic talents such as Sergei Eisenstein (who attended Kuleshov’s Fi...
1962: Ilich’s Gate and 1965: I Am Twenty (Marlen Khutsiev) Viktoria Paranyuk December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema A Portrait of an Era: Ilich’s Gate and I Am Twenty (Marlen Khutsiev, 1962 and 1965) At a March 1963 meeting with the creative intelligentsia, Nikita ...
1984: The Legend of Suram Fortress (Sergei Parajanov) Olga Kim December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Nesting Figures of the Past: The Legend of Suram Fortress (Sergei Parajanov, 1984) The Georgian legend about a youth bricked up alive in the wall of ...
1988: Little Vera (Vasily Pichul) Daria Ezerova December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema “A Bomb into the Lap of Mother Russia”: Little Vera (Vasiliy Pichul, 1988) In May 1989, an issue of the American magazine Playboy caused a furore in ...
1932: Komsomol: Leader of Electrification (Esfir Shub) Natalie Ryabchikova December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Speaking in the Voice of the Workers: Komsomol: Leader of Electrification (Esfir Shub, 1932) Esfir Shub is known primarily for her “found footage” fi...
1925: The Death Ray (Lev Kuleshov) Natalie Ryabchikova December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema A Cinephile in the Land of the Bolsheviks: The Death Ray (Lev Kuleshov, 1925) Lev Kuleshov’s Luch smerti (The Death Ray, 1925) is wedged between the ...
1976: The Irony of Fate, or I Hope You Have a Nice Bath! (Eldar Riazanov) Masha Shpolberg December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema A Soviet Fairy Tale: Ironiya sudby, ili S legkim parom! (The Irony of Fate, or I Hope You Have a Nice Bath!, Eldar Riazanov, 1976) Canon formation te...
1924: Strike (Sergei Eisenstein) Natalie Ryabchikova December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema The Master’s Debut: Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, 1924) As Eisenstein himself described it years later, Stachka (Strike, 1924) had been “Awkward. Angula...
2007: Cargo 200 (Aleksei Balabanov) Jeremi Szaniawski December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Balabanov’s Law: Cargo 200 (Aleksei Balabanov, 2007) Throughout his short but prolific career, Aleksei Balabanov (1959-2013) produced an oeuvre – mos...
1929: The Old and the New (Sergei Eisenstein) Julia Vassilieva December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Historical Rapture: The Old and the New (Sergei Eisenstein, 1929) Sergei Eisenstein’s fourth silent feature, General Line, which was released under t...
2014: Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev) Julia Vassilieva December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema The Excesses of Power: Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014) Heralded as Russia's greatest cinematic accomplishment in recent years, Andrey Zvyagintse...
1997: Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov) Jeremi Szaniawski December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Before Empire Come: Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1997) The story of a mother slowly dying while in the care of her son, Mat i syn (Mother and S...
1929: Man With a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov) Shari Kizirian December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema From Failed Propaganda to Timeless Masterpiece: Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) In 1927 while Soviet cinema was celebrating the tenth an...
1964: Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev) Daniel Fairfax December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Adapting the Cinema to Shakespeare: Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, 1964) It is perhaps a measure of the state of Soviet film culture in the Khrushchev er...
2013: Hard to Be a God (Aleksei German) Lukas Brasiskis December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Hope in Despair, and Beauty in Revulsion: Trudno byt bogom (Aleksei German, 2013) Labeled as one of the biggest perfectionists among his peers, Russi...
1950: The Fall of Berlin (Mikheil Chiaurelli) Brad Weismann December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Autocrat as Messiah: The Fall of Berlin Padenie Berlina (The Fall of Berlin, Mikheil Chiaurelli, 1950) is the epitome of the politically correct fil...