Celebrating Chekhov

3/27/10 to 4/18/10

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of Anton Chekhov's birth, this series presents a diverse selection of Soviet and Russian films adapted from his writings.

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  • Uncle Vanya, March 27

  • Upcoming
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  • Past
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  • Past
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Past Films

  • Uncle Vanya

    Saturday, March 27 6:30 pm
    Andrei Konchalovsky (U.S.S.R., 1970). A retired professor brings his much younger bride to his fading country estate, encountering the fading individuals who live within it, in this tragicomic investigation of wasted lives. “The best Uncle Vanya I've ever seen.”-Woody Allen (104 mins)
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  • Ward No. 6

    Sunday, March 28 4:00 pm
    Karen Shakhnazarov, Alexander Gornovsky (Russia, 2009). The head doctor of a mental asylum discovers his most thoughtful colleague is actually a patient in this satiric adaptation, filmed in a real asylum and set in a contemporary Russia of strip clubs and traffic jams. From the director of surrealist cult favorite Zerograd. (83 mins)
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  • The Seagull

    Saturday, April 3 6:30 pm
    Yuli Karasik (U.S.S.R., 1970). The dreams of a young playwright are destroyed by an uncaring public, but soon revived by the attentions of an actress, in one of Chekhov's best-known works, adapted to beautiful effect. (99 mins)
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  • An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano

    Friday, April 9 7:00 pm
    Nikita Mikhalkov (U.S.S.R., 1977). The obsessions and pretensions of the leisure class are ruthlessly and comically exposed in this look at two old lovers reuniting at a countryside gathering, “an astonishing example of creative adaptation.”-Newsweek. “Brilliantly funny . . . sardonic, insightful, and tender . . . Great and definitive Chekhov.”-L.A. Times (100 mins)
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  • The Lady with the Dog

    Saturday, April 10 6:30 pm
    Josef Heifitz (U.S.S.R., 1960). A married man falls for a married woman while on vacation in Yalta in this elegant adaptation, crisply filmed in black and white. “Knowing The Lady with the Dog is a blessing. . . . . I consider it supreme in filmmaking.”-Ingmar Bergman (89 mins)
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  • Chekhov's Motives

    Saturday, April 17 8:50 pm
    Kira Muratova (Russia, 2002). Kira Muratova, one of Russia's best-known-and most often banned-directors, drags Chekhov straight into the twenty-first century in this tale of starving students, idealistic youth, cell phones, and SUVs. Eccentric and utterly fabulous, it fulfills Muratova's ideal of art as “an emotional snakebite.” (120 mins)
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  • A Hunting Accident

    Sunday, April 18 5:15 pm
    Emil Lotyanu (U.S.S.R., 1978). Tarkovsky star Oleg Yankovsky powers this tale of a younger woman who is forced to marry a rich older man but falls for a young detective. A subtle critique of aristocracy, an embodiment of decadence, and “a rousing recreation of the times in poetic rather than realistic form.”-Variety (109 mins)
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