THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED
Russian Film Series Schedule
Wednesdays, 1:15-3:30
June 16. Land of the Deaf, 1997 (115 min), by Valerii Todorovskii. In Russian with English subtitles. Introduced by Michael Brewer. FQ 1K56
This highly acclaimed criminal/love drama follows the adventures of two women who find themselves thrown together to navigate their way through two disparate, yet intersecting worlds - the hostile world of the Moscow mafia and the silent "land of the deaf." The adventure begins when Rita, a young woman pawned to the mob by her debt-ridden boyfriend, is rescued and taken in by Yaya, an obstinate deaf woman. Aleksandr Aigi's award winning musical score and Iuri Shaigardanov's evocative location photography impart a latent, otherworldly atmosphere to the film's fast-paced narrative.
June 23.Circus, 1936 (89 min), by Grigorii Aleksandrov. In Russian with English subtitles. Introduced by Sasha Prokhorov. FQ 1K56
A Hollywood-style Musical with a Soviet twist, Grigorii Aleksadrov's Circus tells the story of an American woman who has emigrated to the Soviet Union to escape the racism directed at her mulatto child.
June 30. Hammer and Sickle, 1994 (95 min), by Sergei Livnev. In Russian with English subtitles. Introduced by Julia Sagaidak. FQ 1K56
Livnev's film is both a kitschy, gender-bending tribute to Staliniana and an interrogation of it. SEt in the "Stakhanovite" year of 1936, the film's plot is centered around a novel attempt by the security forces to increase the [male] workforce.
July 7. Moscow Does not Believe in Tears, 1980 (150 min), by Vladimir Men'shov. In Russian with English subtitles. Introduced by Suzanne Daly. FQ 1K56
Men'shov's quintessential 1970s melodrama has been called a "Soviet Cinderella Story," and has often been read as a Stagnation-era commentary on Thaw culture. The plot follows the lives of three young women, beginning with their experiences in a Soviet dormitory in the 1960s, and culminating in the late 1970s, when the life choices each made in the 1960s are shown to reap their due reward.
July 14. Sideburns, 1990 (100 min), by Iurii Mamin. In Russian with English subtitles. Introduced by Lena Prokhorov. FQ 1K56
This darkly satirical Perestroika film takes on the Soviet/Russian phenomenon of the "cult of the poet." The film takes its name from the well-known sideburnes of the Russian national poet Aleksandr Pushkin. It documents the rise of the "bakeny" ["burnies"], a gang of vigilante Pushkinites who specialize in cleaning the streets of undesirables while reciting verse and sporting 19th century, aristocratic dress and the obligatory "sideburns." But although the film is centered around the cult of the artist, it consciously makes numerous allusions to a parallel political phenomenon in the 20th century -- the "cult of personality," specifically as evidenced in Stalinism and Nazism.
July 21. The Thief, 1997 (110 min) by Pavel Chukhrai. In Russian with English subtitles. Introduced by Anna Tumarkin. FQ 1K56
Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1997, Chukhrai's The Thief takes a nostalgic,and visually sumptuous look back at post-war Soviet Russia through the eyes of a young boy whose mother is seduced by an enigmatic soldier. Ten minutes were cut from the end of the version released in the United States. This cut footage will be shown following the initial screening.
July 28. Dreams, 1993 (78 min), by Karen Shakhnazarov and Aleksandr Borodianskii. In Russian with English subtitles. Introduced by Jerry McCausland. FQ 1K56
Is history doomed to repeat itself? The question is posed in a new way that is both disturbing and highly entertaining in this 1993 film. The story takes place in the 1890s. The Countess Prezorov is troubled by strange dreams in which she appears as a dishwasher woman in a filthy cafeteria in a strange country called the CIS. The tales of her adventures astound and scandalize her husband, Count Prezorov, and the doctor to whom she has turned for help.
All Institute Screening
June 29. An Unforgettable Summer In Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, and English and with English subtitles, 1994 (82 min). FQ 1K56
An unconventional love story set against ta background of political confusion. Kristen Scott-Thomas gives a tour-de-force performance as Marie-Therese, a young woman sent to a remote military outpost with her army officer husband and their children. Called one of the ten best films of 1994 by J. Hoberman of the Village Voice.