Envisioning Russia: A Century of Filmmaking

10/10/08 to 10/30/08

Classics by masters from Eisenstein to Tarkovsky; little-seen genre gems; fabulously kitschy relics of the Soviet era-all are part of the panorama of Russian cinema presented in this eclectic survey.

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  • Sadko, October 12

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • The Battleship Potemkin

    Friday, October 10 6:30 PM
    Judith Rosenberg on Piano. Sergei Eisenstein's classic can be appreciated for “not only the perfection of its form, but the humanitarianism and enthusiasm that impregnated its revolutionary subject.”-Georges Sadoul
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  • The Ascent

    Friday, October 10 8:20 PM
    In Larissa's Shepitko's masterpiece, the partisan struggle against the Nazis in WWII provides the setting for a tale of morality and martyrdom. “A profoundly moving experience.”-Filmex '78
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  • Sadko

    Sunday, October 12 3 PM
    Sinbad's voyage is transformed by one of the great poets of fantasy filmmaking, Alexander Ptushko.
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  • Tractor Drivers

    Thursday, October 16 6:30 PM
    This musical prototype for the girl-boy-tractor romances “begins as a deceptively easygoing trifle, by the end becoming a reminder that with World War II in sight, tanks would soon replace tractors.”-N.Y. Sun
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  • Carnival Night

    Thursday, October 16 8:20 PM
    This deliciously witty 1956 comedy showed that, even in Stalin's Russia, kids just want to rock 'n' roll.
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  • The Cranes Are Flying

    Saturday, October 18 6:30 PM
    Mikhail Kalatozov's stunningly visualized drama of young love and ambition destroyed by war, a key work of the post-Stalin era.
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  • The Letter Never Sent

    Saturday, October 18 8:30 PM
    Also by Kalatozov, “the most profound examination of man against nature ever filmed. It took a Russian to do it well.”-Dennis Jakob
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  • Jewish Luck

    Sunday, October 19 1:30 PM
    Judith Rosenberg on Piano. Sholem Aleichem's classic is brought to the screen in an extraordinary meeting of Russian-Jewish talent.
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  • Uncle Vanya

    Sunday, October 19 3:30 PM
    Konchalovsky's adaptation of Chekhov's play, “a comedy that moves to the cadences of tragedy.”-Albert Johnson
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  • Bed and Sofa

    Wednesday, October 22 7 PM
    Judith Rosenberg on Piano. With its humor and naturalism, Avram Room's intimate drama dealing with a ménage à trois brought about by a housing shortage appears modern even today.
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  • The Mirror

    Friday, October 24 6:30 PM
    The most poetic and inventive of Russian directors, Andrei Tarkovsky, sketches his youth through dream images of a young boy who is hypnotized in a clinic.
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  • The Russian Question

    Saturday, October 25 8:45 PM
    Mikhail Romm's vintage Cold War film about a pro-Moscow American journalist is enlivened by its humanity, and a score by Aram Khachaturian.
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  • Happiness

    Wednesday, October 29 7 PM
    Judith Rosenberg on Piano. What happens when a slacker is invited to join a farming collective? “A dark and funny assault on peasant-class pieties.”-N.Y. Sun
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  • The New Moscow

    Wednesday, October 29 8:30 PM
    “Eye-popping amalgamation of country comedy, musical romance, and science fiction. . . . Alexandr Medvedkin shocks through the sheer audacity of his project.”-Richard Peña
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  • Elegy of Life: Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya

    Thursday, October 30 6:30 PM
    Aleksandr Sokurov's deeply felt tribute to a remarkable musical partnership: cellist-conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya.
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  • Alexandra

    Thursday, October 30 8:30 PM
    Sokurov stuns the senses, depicting humanity at its fiercest and finest, personified by the titular grandmother journeying through wartorn Chechnya. Galina Vishnevskaya stars.
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