MARCH 19 21 FRI 7 pm, SUN 4:30 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
WINDOW TO PARIS
USSR 1993
DIRECTOR: YURI MAMIN “Before we were all preparing builders of Communism. Now we’re preparing builders of Capitalism. But they all come out the same: predators and ignorant crooks!” Tchiyov, a music and aesthetics teacher bemoans teaching business instead of beauty in the new Russia. Then he and his neighbor Gorokhov discover a magic window that opens a miraculous passage leading from glum St. Petersberg to the bustling, western streets of Paris. For Tchiyou, the window provides a fabulous cultural excursion. For Gorokhov and the rest of the neighborhood, it’s a frenzied shopping spree—from paté to a Citroen— hurried by the fear that the window will close, which inevitable it must. For Mamin, of course, his delightful, carnivalesque story is comic therapy for the stark reality of a Russia in slow decay in the face of change.”—Portland International Film Festival. (87 mins.)

MARCH 20 21 SAT 7 pm, SUN 6:30 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
RUSSIAN ARK
RUSSIA 2002
DIRECTOR: ALEXANDER SOKUROV “Russian Ark is both a dazzling technical tour-de-force and a love letter to Russian culture. Unfolding in real time in a single, dreamlike uncut digital video take, it tracks a contemporary filmmaker (Sokurov) and a mercurial 19th-century French diplomat, the Marquis De Custine-our tour guides on a phantasmagoric, time-traveling journey through St. Petersburg's opulent Hermitage Museum. Swirling through the galleries of time we encounter its first resident, Catherine the Great, the family of Czar Nicholas II, current Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky and regular Russian art lovers. Requiring seven months of rehearsal, 1,000 costumed actors, the equivalent of 33 soundstages and a live orchestra performance, the exhilarating final film was shot in just the amount of time it takes to watch it. But beyond the seamless logistical achievement-Russian Ark creates a moving testimony to human resiliency and the survival of culture. Sampling history and some of the world's most exquisite art and artifacts, it is, like the Hermitage itself, a veritable Russian Ark.”—Portland International Film Festival. (96 mins.)

MARCH 26 FRI 7 pm
WHITSELL AUDITOPRIUM
A LONG HAPPY LIFE
USSR 1966
DIRECTOR: GENNADY SHAPALIKOV “No one more exemplified the idea of the "60s man" than Gennady Shpalikov. Poet, lyricist, and screenwriter (I Am Twenty, You and Me), he continues to personify even today the skeptical outsider, someone dissatisfied with the old truths but still not convinced by anything else. In A LONG HAPPY LIFE, his only work as a film director, he offers perhaps the most perfect, and touching, expression of his vision. A man, Viktor, is riding a bus in the provinces. He gets off in a small town, and by chance hooks up with Lena. They spend the night together, but in the morning each ask themselves, "What has changed?" A film of exquisite delicacy, A LONG HAPPY LIFE is less interested in recounting a story than it is in trying to describe a feeling. The film has been compared to those of Bergman, Antonioni, and other contemporary modernists, but A LONG HAPPY LIFE has a sensibility all its own.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center. (90 mins.)

MARCH 27 SAT 7 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
MASQUERADE
USSR 1941
director: Sergei Gerasimov “Soviet-era studio filmmaking at it’s finest: delicate lighting, sumptuous sets, and a wildly melodramatic story. Based on the play by Lermontov, MASQUERADE begins when the beautiful, aristocratic Nina (the lovely Tamara Makarova) loses a bracelet during a masked ball. Her husband, Arbenin (the amazing Nikolai Mordvinov), discovers it and thinks she's given it to an admirer—and he's got a pretty good idea who that might be. Remarkably similar to Ophuls's Madame de… , which is based on different source material, MASQUERADE charts the devastating effects of Arbenin's jealousy on everyone around the couple. Director Gerasimov shows himself to be a master of the moving camera, and his use of incredibly deep space to stage action (often complemented by opening or slamming doors) seems way ahead of its time.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center. (113 mins.)

MARCH 28 SUN 7 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
MY FRIEND IVAN LAPSHIN
USSR 1984
DIRECTOR: ALEXEI GUERMAN "The heroism of a provincial police investigator is recalled 50 years later by one who knew and admired him; this device becomes even more intriguing given that the film's source is a series of popular stories written by Alexei Guerman's father. Much of the action takes place in an overcrowded communal house where Lapshin, 'our local Pinkerton,' is already something of a legend, fearlessly pursuing criminals yet farcically unlucky in his love life. The gentle comedy of his courtship of a local actress contrasts vividly with a violent raid on a gangster's hideout, yet the overriding theme is memory, embodied in a fragmented point-of-view as elaborate as anything in Orson Welles…. Guerman looks like the most radical force in Soviet cinema since Tarkovsky."—Toronto International Film Festival. (101 mins.)

APRIL 1 THU 7 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
OCTOBER
USSR 1928
DIRECTOR: SERGEI EISENSTEIN, GRIGORY ALEXANDROV “Little introduction is needed for Eisenstein's towering masterwork of the Russian Revolution, an epic re-creation of the events leading up to the Bolshevik victory in late 1917, told from a decidedly Marxist point of view. Although normally based in Moscow, Eisenstein organized his production at Lenfilm since he wanted to use the actual Petrograd (i.e. St. Petersburg, i.e. Leningrad) locations where the depicted events took place. As in historical fiction, the action moves between historical personalities and the unknown masses who in the film's view were the true authors of the Revolution; Eisenstein's editing strategies continually emphasize the connections and contradictions that abound in any moment of historical change, challenging the viewer to see beyond the façade of appearances. Rarely have film theory and film practice been brought together so effectively.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center. (104 mins.)

APRIL 2 4 FRI 7 pm, SUN 4:30 pm
WHITSELL AUDITOIUM
SECOND CIRCLE
USSR 1990
DIRECTOR: ALEXANDER SOKUROV “Over the past 15 years, Alexander Sokurov (RUSSIAN ARK) has become Lenfilm's best-known director internationally, making almost all his films there since his first feature. For many his first masterpiece, SECOND CIRCLE begins as an intense, brooding young man returns to his home village deep in Siberia to deal with his father's death and burial. Much of the remarkable film turns on the problem of actually getting the old man's body into the ground, and as the difficulties start to seem truly Kafkaesque, Sokurov creates a homegrown metaphor for individual grief and Soviet sociopolitical realities, past and present. Yet beyond the film's powerful political vision lies Sokurov's extraordinary visual design for the film, alternately gray and colorful, images that seem at times on the verge of implosion from the "weight" of the bloated, corrupt world they're trying to capture. In the words of film critic Paul Clark, ‘rarely has brilliance been so bare."—Film Society of Lincoln Center (92 mins.)

APRIL 3 SAT 7 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
THE BEGINNING a.k.a. DEBUT
USSR 1970
DIRECTOR: GLEB PANFILOV “Pasha is a small-town factory worker whose great passion (beyond the married man she's seeing) is the theater, but, not considered a beauty, she's often stuck in character roles. One day a famous film director happens to drop in on one of her amateur group's productions, and struck by Pasha's performance, he invites her to star in an international co-production of Joan of Arc. Not normally known as a Lenfilm director, Gleb Panfilov actually began his career there, and won his first major international award (Silver Lion at Venice) with this, his second feature. Inna Churikova, one of the greatest actresses still working in cinema today (and Panfilov's great muse), received international acclaim for her heart-rending performance as Pasha, alternately hilarious, pitiful, and seductive—and at times all three.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center.
(91 mins.)

APRIL 4 SUN 6:30 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
SEVEN COURAGEOUS
USSR 1936
DIRECTOR: SERGEI GERASIMOVS “Adventure films with a slight scientific patina were popular with Soviet audiences; the adventure quotient could provide some exciting action and exotic locales, while the science gave the film a kind of progressive posture. One of the best in the genre was Gerasimov's SEVEN COURAGEOUS. Far off in the bleak Arctic wilderness, seven committed pioneers carry out geological surveys and experiments, while occasionally doing a little medical work among the local Inuit population. A kind of brusque camaraderie pervades the group; even the lone female (Tamara Makarova) seems like just one of the guys. Inevitably, though, problems mount: The weather worsens, and nature rises up to thwart their efforts. Gerasimov moves seamlessly between studio-shot sequences and terrific outdoor footage; throughout, the film expresses a sense of quiet heroism, of people doing their jobs for a purpose greater than the worth of any of their individual lives. —Film Society of Lincoln Center. (92 mins.)

APRIL 8 THU 7 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
TWENTY DAYS WITHOUT WAR
USSR 1976
DIRECTOR: ALEXI GUERMAN “Alexei Guerman's (MY FRIEND IVAN LAPSHIN) contribution to Lenfilm goes far beyond the brilliant films he has directed there; since the mid-70s, he has become something of a figurehead for the "Lenfilm spirit" —provocative, unexpected, and decidedly non-conformist. Son of the writer Yuri Guerman, he returns again and again in his films to the scene of his father's youth in an effort to understand how, to his mind, things turned out so badly in the Soviet Union for so many reasonably good people. Naturally, such a theme has not made his work popular with authorities. In TWENTY DAYS WITHOUT WAR, he brings to the screen an adaptation of Konstantin Simonov's story ‘Lopatin's Notes.’ A weathered military reporter, Lopatin is given twenty days leave to recuperate in Tashkent; yet the war is everywhere around him—in the numbing poverty, in the faces of teenagers with no future. A love story emerges, but it seems little more than a faint protest in such a world.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center. (101 mins.)

APRIL 9 11 FRI 7 pm, SUN 4 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
KING LEAR
USSR 1970
DIRECTOR: GRIGORY KOZINTSEV “Like all Soviet studios, Lenfilm made its share of adaptations of classic world literature, but its adaptations of Hamlet and King Lear, both directed by Grigory Kozintsev, are among the greatest film versions of Shakespeare. One critic has written "of all Shakespeare's tragedies, King Lear is perhaps the best suited to Russian adaptation, being the longest, wildest, starkest, and most replete with pain and suffering at all levels." Yet while Kozintsev surely plumbs the depths of Shakespeare's despair, he has nonetheless fashioned a brilliant adaptation that is never less than exhilarating. Using Boris Pasternak's translation, Kozintsev captures both the chaos of battle and the deepening madness of the king. As Lear loses command over his land, his daughters, and finally himself, the tragedy moves inexorably to its shattering climax. With a superb score by Shostakovich.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center.
(140 mins.)

APRIL 10 11 SAT 7:30 pm, SUN 7 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
THE NEW BABYLON
USSR 1929
DIRECTOR: GRIGORY KOZINTSEV, LEONID TRAUBERG “While Eisenstein was developing his theories about film editing (see OCTOBER), Kozintsev and Trauberg had founded FEKS (the Factory of the Eccentric Actor) in Leningrad to develop their own, equally radical approach to filmmaking. THE NEW BABYLON was their masterpiece, a perfect synthesis of their use of stylized performances and off-kilter, unsettling visual compositions. In 1871, during the Franco-Prussian War, a group of revolutionaries created the Paris Commune; an entire cross-section of Parisian citizenry comes alive during the rise and fall of this noble experiment, but the film especially focuses on the love affair between Louise, a shop clerk in the giant department store the New Babylon, and a heroic young soldier. Traces of Manet, Renoir, and Zola can be felt throughout, blended together in a dazzlingly original FEKS concoction.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center. (80 mins.)

APRIL 14 WED 7 pm
GUILD THEATRE
LETTERS FROM A DEAD MAN
USSR 1986
DIRECTOR: KONSTANIN LOPUSHANSKY “A comprehensive catalog of Lenfilm productions put out by the studio itself lists, lists the film's genre as "anti-utopia." Whether or not such a genre exists, a more apt description of Lopushansky's film can't be imagined. Assistant to Tarkovsky on STALKER, Lopushansky continues and evolves that imagination of a postapocalyptic world. A mishap sets off nuclear war, and years later the few wretched survivors struggle to cling to whatever life is still available to them. Many of the surviving children have been left mute, and they and others deemed unfit are left to die from the slow effects of the lingering radiation. Meanwhile, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Larsen (Rolan Bykov), who sees himself as responsible for what has happened, composes imaginary letters to his dead son, Eric. The film is short on special effects but rich in texture and ideas; winner of 14 international prizes, LETTERS so impressed Ted Turner that he arranged to have the film broadcast on TNT.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center. (88 mins.)

APRIL 15 16 THU 7 pm, FRI 8:30 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
HOUSE IN THE SNOW DRIFTS
USSR 1927
DIRECTOR: FRIEDERICH ERMLER “One of the many Soviet-era artists in need of serious re-evaluation (or just plain discovery), Friedrich Ermler spent practically his entire career at Lenfilm. Based on the short story The Cave by Yevgeny Zamatkin, HOUSE IN THE SNOW DRIFTS tells the story of the inhabitants of a small apartment house in the winter of 1919 - 1920, as the battle between "red" (communist) and "white" (tsarist) forces was raging outside the city. For most of these characters, survival is the most important concern, ideological or other interests falling far behind the drive to just stay alive. Among them is a young musician, who feels his art places him somehow above the struggle going on all around him. Ermler's treatment of his characters is remarkably evenhanded, their weaknesses and even deceptions understood against a backdrop of fear and deprivation.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center. (63 mins.)

APRIL 16 FRI 7 pm
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
ALONE
USSR 1931
DIRECTOR: GRIGORY KOZINSTEV, LEONID TRABERG “ALONE is based on the true story of a young woman graduate of Leningrad's teacher-training institute who accepts a job in far-off Siberia but then almost dies when her sleigh driver abandons her on a vast snow-covered plain. Almost shelved after being attacked by some critics for its supposed "individualism," the film was later given an award by a workers' committee (for being "lifelike") and went on to be a great popular success. One of the first Soviet sound films, ALONE is a powerful example of an innovative use of sound that relied heavily on counterpoint and nonsynchronized sounds. In the central role, Elena Kuzmina gives a steely powerful performance.”—Film Society of Lincoln Center. (80 mins.)

APRIL 19 mon 7 pm
GUILD THEATRE
IN THAT LAND
USSR 1997
DIRECTOR: LIDIYA BOBROVAL "Through a study of its rural citizens, Bobrova's IN THAT LAND chronicles the changes under way in the new Russia, recording stark but politically and socially evocative moments in their hidden lives (the film's) episodic narrative traces the rituals and relationships that bond this community in comic but never caricatured fashion. A quiet shepherd, Skuridin, is besieged by an abusive wife and mother-in-law, confiding his despair to his horses and cows Chapurin, the town's work leader, embarks on a relentless campaign to curb the locals' penchant for drinking large quantities of vodka—even resorting to poisoning the stuff . . .Distraught over the lack of available men for her daughter, one mother begins corresponding with a prison inmate, but when he's released and comes calling, he turns out to be little more than an urban thug. IN THAT LAND employs perfectly composed images of great beauty to deliver an insightful glimpse into one community's timeless stoicism in the face of political upheaval."—Toronto Film Festival. (90 mins.)