A Spring for the Thirsty

A Spring for the Thirsty was a debut feature for Yurii Illienko, cinematographer of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and Sergei Parajanov’s main follower and rival within the Ukrainian poetic school of the 1960s. Beautifully shot on high-contrast film, this “wonder in every sense of the word” (Russell Merritt) follows a lonely old man’s reawakening. Written by the poet Ivan Drach as a tragicomic character study, the film becomes Illienko’s parable of memory, death, and rites of passage. Banned and shelved for twenty-two years, and finally released during Perestroika in 1987, “A Spring for the Thirsty looks just as avant-garde today as it must have in 1965” (Kelly Vance).