Elem Klimov is one ofthe most respected film artists in the Soviet Union today; in May, hewas elected President of the Soviet Filmmakers Union, the country's keyfilm advisory organization. Western and Soviet observers alike arepredicting an era of significant changes in the Soviet film industryunder Klimov's artistic guidance. Klimov, born in Volgograd in 1933,debuted as a director of satiric comedies (his Sport, Sport, Sport wasshown at PFA in July 1984), but it is with his deeply serious films,beginning with Agonia (1976), a complex production on the revolutionaryevents of 1917, that he has achieved international prominence. Come andSee won the Grand Prix at the 1985 Moscow Film Festival and was featuredalso at the Venice, London and San Francisco Film Festivals. Our seriesmarks the West Coast premiere of Klimov's 1983 film Farewell, writtenand begun by his late wife Larissa Shepitko. (Farewell will be shownNovember 7.) On viewing Come and See, Britishcritic Clare Kitson wrote: "Anyone who thinks that the cinema is deadneeds to experience Come and See. It's dazzling filmmaking; it'stowering, cathartic, and left audiences at the Moscow and VeniceFestivals drained. It's also one of the most controversial films on thefestival circuit. Set in occupied Byelorussia in 1943, it follows ateenage partisan through various horrific encounters until finally thelad finds himself in a village which (along with 620 others inByelorussia, a credit tells us) the Nazis annihilate by herding allinhabitants into a barn and setting fire to it. The camerawork istremendous and isolated images-like the boy waking one foggy morning ina field after a mortar attack, his head resting on a dead cow-stick inthe mind. The acting of the young lead, who deteriorates into amiddle-aged wreck as a result of the atrocities he witnesses, isimmaculate; the handling of crowds spectacular. If you feel up to 142minutes of raw emotion, you must see this film."