1st June 2008; Screening of Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood

In the entire history of cinema there has never been a director,
who has made such a dramatic stand for the human spirit
as did Andrei Tarkovsky.

Ivan's Childhoood
A film by Andrei Takovsky
Country : Soviet Union
Year 1962
Russian with English sub titles
Run time : 95 minutes
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium
1^st June 2008 ; 5.45 pm

When I discovered the first films of Tarkovsky, it was a miracle. I suddenly found myself before a door to which I had never had the key.a room which I had always wished to penetrate and wherein he felt perfectly at ease. Someone was able to express what I had always wished to say without knowing how. For me Tarkovsky is the greatest filmmaker
- Ingmar Bergman

Ivan's Childhood was Tarkovsky's first feature film and won him critical acclaim and made him known internationally. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1962 and the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1962.

Perhaps no other filmmaker can be said to have equalled the breathtaking beauty and cinematic genius of the opening sequence of Ivan's childhood, the movements of the elaborate crane shots tracing the director's inimitable signature, an example of his matchless skill at 'sculpting in time'.

On an idyllic summer day, a 12 year old boy named Ivan (Nikolai Burlyayev) ventures into the woods and spots a cuckoo. He begins to levitate above the forest, rejoins his mother (Irma Raush Tarkovskaya), and begins to share his discovery. Then the peaceful reunion between mother and son is truncated by Ivan's rude awakening to the sound of mortar firing. Suddenly, it is evening, and a hungry, weary Ivan awakens in the attic of an empty windmill. The surreal episode proves to be an intangible dream. Resuming his reconnaissance mission, Ivan then crosses a treacherous swamp amidst enemy fire. Unable to rendezvous with his contact, Corporal Katasonych (Stepan Krylov), Ivan arrives at an alternate Russian bunker, where his credentials are immediately questioned by the ranking officer, Lieutenant Galtsev (Yevgeni Zharikov). Despite his skepticism, Galtsev calls Ivan's superior, Colonel Gryaznov (Nikolai Grinko), who confirms his identity, dispatches Captain Kholin (Valentin Zubkov) to bring him back to headquarters. Gryaznov has taken an interest in the welfare of the young orphan, and has decided to enroll him in a military academy, reasoning that war has no place for children. Ivan refuses to leave, and argues that his age and stealth make him an ideal scout for their missions. Unable to persuade his superiors, Ivan runs away from the barracks, only to find a ravaged, desolate wasteland outside its walls. With nowhere left to turn, he returns with his superiors back to camp. However, despite the officers' reluctance, Ivan is enlisted for a final mission as they prepare for another covert operation.

Andrei Tarkovsky presents an austere, bleak and haunting portrait of lost innocence in Ivan's Childhood. As regards the immediate influence of Ivan's Childhood, or its importance, one need look no further than the words of the great Georgian filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov: "I did not know how to do anything and I would not have done anything if there had not been Ivan's Childhood." Kieslowski made similar pronouncements and we can see how all three directors shared an obsession with the elements and with injecting objects with a magical epiphanic quality - preoccupations which can be traced back to Tarkovsky's debut feature.

Andrei Tarkovsky

April 4, 1932 - December 29, 1986

"Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual."
- Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky is the most influential Soviet filmmaker of the post-war era, and one of the world's most renowned cinematic geniuses. He created spiritual, existential films of incredible beauty, repeatedly returning to themes of memory, dreams and childhood . Although Tarkovksy directed only seven feature films during his twenty-year active career, he is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of the late 20th century . His films, such as Stalker , Solaris, Mirror, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice make use of long, unedited shots and wide angles in uncompromisingly formalistic statements that are as striking today as they were when they were first made.

Tarkovsky was born in the village of Zavrazhye in Kostroma Province in Soviet Union as the child of the poet and translator Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky and Maria Ivanova Vishnyakova, a graduate of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. After high school graduation, from 1951 to 1952, Tarkovsky studied Arabic at the Oriental Institute in Moscow, In 1954 Tarkovsky joined the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) to the film-directing-program. He was in the same class as Irma Raush, whom he married in April 1957.

Tarkovsky also worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, film theorist and theater director. He directed most of his films in the Soviet Union, with the exception of his last two films which were produced in Italy and Sweden. His films are characterized by Christian spirituality and metaphysical themes, extremely long takes, lack of conventional dramatic structure and plot, and memorable images of exceptional beauty.

Each of Tarkovsky's films has its own dreamlike inner coherence, but a number of images remain constant from film to film, acting as unifying links and providing clues to the cinematic language Tarkovsky created.

Poetic Reasoning - Whereas Eisenstein had utilized the theories of montage to create artificial links between images where there were none, Tarkovsky applied laws of "poetic reasoning" to the creation of his films from Andrei Rublev onward. Tarkovsky felt his task was to unveil relationships between images and events as created and set into motion by God, rather than imposing relationships upon filmgoers in order to manipulate them into a prescribed point of view. Tarkovsky was especially drawn to the internal logic of Japanese haiku, wherein three very different images are combined to form a whole much larger than the parts.

Tarkovsky died on December 29, 1986 in Paris at age 54. He was buried on January 3, 1987 in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois in France. The inscription on his grave stone, which was created by the Russian sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, reads ‘ To the man who saw the Angel ’.

25th May 2008; Screening of Govind Nihalani's Ardh Satya

Before entering the circle of enemies
who was I and how i was
I didn't remember it

After entering it there was only dangerous nearness
between me and the circle and i wasn't aware of it.

After getting out of the circle
I would become free for sure,
but there wont be a change in the structure itself

whether i die or kill
This will never be decided

- Dilip Chitre's poem in Ardh Satya

Ardh Satya
A Film by Govind Nihalani
Year 1983
Hindi with English sub titles
25^th May 2008 ; 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium

If there is one Indian movie that still stands proud, its head held high, defiant and angst-ridden on the long and eventful cinemascape of the nation, it has to be Ardh Satya.

The mother of all cop movies ever produced in India, this 130-minute movie helped establish, with one master stroke, the brilliance of Govind Nihalani's capability to fuse elements of art into commercial mainstream fare and to secure and shape the careers of Om Puri and Sadashiv Amrapurkar.

Ardh Satya or 'Half Truth' tells the story of Ananth Welankar (Om Puri), who is thrust into the Indian Police Force against his will by his domineering father (Amrish Puri, who plays his career-best role of Mogambo). The story centres around the rising angst he feels inside owing to his principled heart being stifled on a daily basis at the workplace, choked in the vice-like grip of the police-politician nexus, and the increasing impotence he feels with the events that shape his career amidst this degrading chaos.

Smitha Patil plays Jyotsna, a college lecturer and Om Puri's lady friend, whom he considers his island of calm amidst the raging hurricane inside his head. The movie is the ultimate tribute to the fiery dynamics between Om Puri and Amrish Puri as the explosive son and the domineering father.

It happened to be the unwitting second classic in the trilogy of cop sagas that Govind Nihalani explored, starting with Aakrosh in 1980, Ardh Satya in 1982 and Drohkaal in 1994.

Vijay Tendulkar wrote the screenplay based on the Marathi short story Surya by D.A. Panavalkar. Ardha Satya won the 1983 Filmare Awards for Best Movie, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Best Screenplay and Best Story. In 1984, Om Puri got the National Best Actor Award for his leading role in the movie.

The poems of Dilip Chitre, that in the movie are the work of Om Puri's lady friend Jyothsna that help the disturbed man find his identity and final solace, run through the movie as the central theme. They are literary gems that don't appear too often in the commercial staple fare of Indian cinema.

Govind Nihalani

Govind Nihalani is one of Indian cinema's foremost directors.He was born on 19 August 1940 in Karachi (now in Pakistan) and his family migrated to India during the partition of 1947. He started out as a cinematographer, graduating in cinematography from the Shree Jaya Chamrajendra polytechnic in Bangalore in 1962. He was associated with all the earlier films of Shyam Benegal and with the cinematography of Richard Attenborough's Oscar-winning epic Gandhi. Nihalanti and Benegal are well known for the socially relevant films they have directed.

An interview with Nihalani - Click here

His first directorial venture was Aakrosh starring Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, the late Smita Patil and the late Amrish Puri. This was based on a real story which was converted into a filmscript by the eminent Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar and it made a huge impact on audiences all over India. It shared the Golden Peacock for best film at the International Film Festival of India held in New Delhi in 1981. His film Ardh Satya, based on a story by Dilip Chitre, is still remembered by film lovers. It changed forever the way in which Indian cinema portrayed the police and it exposed in stark detail the police-politician-criminal nexus.

With Aakrosh (1980), Nihalani joined the ranks of serious filmmakers in India. Since then he has not looked back. After directing more than a dozen thought-provoking features, he is known as a director who portrays the grim social reality without any compromises.

18th May 2008 ; Documentay : Winged Migration

Arguably the most beautiful documentary ever made

Winged Migration

Documentary on the migratory patterns of birds,
shot over the course of three years on all seven continents.

A Film By : Jacques Perrin
Year :2001
Run Time 98 minutes
18th May 2008 : 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital auditorium

"Winged Migration.", which is awesome to regard, wants to allow us to look, simply look, at birds--and that goal it achieves magnificently. The cameras of Jacques Perrin fly with migratory birds: geese, storks, cranes. The film begins with spring in North America and the migration to the Arctic; the flight is a community event for each species. Once in the Arctic, it's family time: courtship, nests, eggs, fledglings, and first flight. Chicks must soon fly south. Bad weather, hunters, and pollution take their toll. Then, the cameras go south of the Equator; Antarctica is the summer destination. The search for food, good weather, and a place to hatch young takes this annual cycle of stamina across continents and oceans. There is a spare narration and a few titles; for the most part it's visual, a bird's eye view.

You see the world beneath as they see it — stunningly spacious, gorgeously hued and sometimes dangerous, for we are with the birds as they skim beneath the bridges of the Seine or past New York City's skyscrapers. The picture is just as good when the cameras come down to Earth, studying the way the birds breed, feed and socialize. Knowing that its crews exposed 590 miles of film to make a relatively short (89 min.) film, we have to marvel at the patience and fortitude of its 450 makers, shooting in 40 countries.

As de Tregomain puts it, this very sophisticated film is "taking cinema back to the earliest moments as a science, when the image being filmed was less tricky than how the camera was going to capture it." There's a purity in this effort. It's enough to give the serious moviegoer heart in this impure season.

Jacques Perrin

Jacques Perrin ( Born 1941 in Paris) is a French actor and filmmaker. He is occasionally credited as Jacques Simonet. Simonet was his father's name and Perrin his mother's.His father, Alexandre Simonet, was a theatre director. Perrin was trained as an actor at the Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique de Paris.

He was given his first juvenile film roles by Italian director Valerio Zurlini. He also gave over 400 performances of L'Année du bac on the Paris stage.He played opposite Claudia Cardinale in the romantic comedy La Ragazza con la valigia and played the adult Salvatore in the international hit Cinema Paradiso. He won two Best Actor awards at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 for the Italian film Almost a Man and the Spanish film The Search.

At 27, he created a studio and filmed the internationally acclaimed Z, which was directed by Costa Gavras . Perrin was both co-producer and actor in the film. He collaborated with Costa Gavras again in État de Siège (State of Siege) in 1973 and Section spéciale in 1975. All of these films had political themes, and Perrin continued this trend with a documentary on the Algerian uprising (La guerre d'Algérie) and a film on the Chilean presidency of Salvador Allende (La Spirale).

Perrin produced another Oscar-winning film in 1976: La Victoire en Chantant (Black and White in Color) by legendary director Jean-Jacques Annaud. In 1977, he embarked on Le Désert des Tartares, again starring Trintignant.

His recent successes have been the animal films Microcosmos and Le Peuple Migrateur (Winged Migration), which were both filmed by his studio Galatée Films.

11th May 2008 ; Screening of Central Station

Central Station
Central Do Brasil (Drama -- Brazilian - French)
A Film By Walter Salles
Year 1998
Country : Brazil
Portuguese with English sub tiles

11t May 2008 ; 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium

In Walter Salles' "Central Station," a hit at Sundance and the winner of top honors at this year's Berlin Film Festival, a cynical, joyless woman crosses paths with a lonely young boy.Beautifully observed and featuring a bravura performance by the Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro, it gracefully watches these oddly paired characters develop a fractious bond that winds up profoundly changing both of them.

"Central Station" slowly settles into the pleasures of a road movie, in which we see modern Brazil through the eyes of the characters: the long-haul trucks that are the lifeline of commerce, the sprawling new housing developments, the hybrid religious ceremonies, the blend of old ways and the 20th century. Whether they find the father is not really the point; the film is about their journey and relationship.

The movie's success rests largely on the shoulders of Fernanda Montenegro, an actress who successfully defeats any temptation to allow sentimentality to wreck her relationship with the child. She understands that the film is not really about the boy's search for his father, but about her own reawakening. This process is measured out so carefully that we don't even notice the point at which she crosses over into a gentler person.

The boy, 10-year-old Vincius de Oliveira, was discovered by the director in an airport, shining shoes. He asked Walter Salles for the price of a sandwich, and Salles, who had been trying for months to cast this role, looked at him thoughtfully and saw young Josue. He plays Josue so well, the performance is transparent.

On a precise but restrained symbolic level, "Central Station" speaks in a cautiously hopeful manner about the possibilities for Brazil's future, suggesting that the deep scars left by the social ills of the recent past might somehow be survived and surmounted by a creative union of the old and the new Brazils.

Walter Salles

Walter Moreira Salles Jr. (born April 12, 1956, Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian filmmaker and film producer of international prominence. He is the son of Walter Moreira Salles, a Brazilian banker and ambassador, and the brother of João Moreira Salles, also a filmmaker.

Salles attended the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.Salles's first notable film was Terra Estrangeira (Foreign Land), released in Brazil in 1995. In 1998 he released Central do Brasil (Central Station) to widespread international acclaim. His next , Abril Despedaçado (Behind the Sun), starring Rodrigo Santoro, was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Golden Globes. Both films were produced by veteran Arthur Cohn and had worldwide distribution.

His biggest international success has been Diarios de Motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries), a 2004 film about the life of young Ernesto Guevara, who later became known as Che Guevara. It was Salles's first foray as director of a film in a language other than his native Portuguese (Spanish, in this case) and quickly became a box-office hit in Latin America and Europe.

In 2005, Salles released his first English-language feature film, which is also his first Hollywood film, Dark Water. In 2003, Salles was voted one of the 40 Best Directors in the World by The Guardian.

4th May 2008 : Screening of Dancer in the Dark

Dancer in the Dark

A Film By Lars von Trier
Year : 2000
Run time : 140 min
English with English sub titles
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium
4th May 2008;5.45 pm
Call 94430 39630

“ I’ve seen it all; there's nothing left to see." These words are sung, with keening defiance, by Selma, a Czech émigré working in a factory and raising her son alone somewhere in Eisenhower-era America, who is going blind from a hereditary disease. Her response to the impending loss of her sight is a joyful shrug: "To be perfectly honest, I really don't care."

The song — written by the Icelandic pop singer Bjork, who plays Selma, and Lars von Trier, the Danish director of "Dancer in the Dark" — expresses a sentiment that seems to attack the most basic foundations of the movie, indeed of cinema itself, which is after all an art built around the miraculous act of seeing. For Selma, music represents a retreat from a life that, if viewed starkly, would be unbearable.

Selma (Björk ) is a Czechoslovakian immigrant, a single mother working in a factory in rural America. She lives in a trailer on the property of a local policeman, Bill (David Morse), and his wife, Linda (Cara Seymour). Selma's best friend is Kathy (Catherine Deneuve), and she is courted by the shy, undemanding Jeff (Peter Stormare) Her salvation is her passion for music, specifically, the all-singing, all-dancing numbers found in classic Hollywood. Selma harbors a sad secret: she is losing her eyesight and her son Gene stands to suffer the same fate if she can't put away enough money to secure him an operation.

The musical numbers, which take place in Selma's imagination to the found music of machinery, train wheels and her own heartbeat, were shot with 100 stationary digital video cameras.

Over the course of more than two hours the viewer is thrown from moments of harrowing realism — scenes whose jumpy rhythm and raw immediacy make you feel as if you're peeking through the window at a moment of private misery — to flights of fantastic absurdity.

Dancer In the Dark does something almost inconceivable in the way it merges two disparate genres (the musical and the tragedy), and the result represents a thought-provoking, emotionally resonant, and innovative cinematic experience.

Lars Von Trier

Lars Trier was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. The young Lars found in cinema an outlet to the outside world through which he could learn about subjects. He began making his own films at the age of 11 after receiving a Super-8 camera as a gift from his mother and continued to be involved in independent moviemaking throughout his high school years.

In 1979 he was enrolled in the Danish Film School. During his time as a student at the school he made the films Nocturne (Nocturne, 1980) and Image of Liberation (Befrielsesbilleder, 1982), both of which won Best Film awards at the Munich Film Festival, along with The Last Detail (Den sidste detalje 1981). His peers at the film school nicknamed him "von Trier." He graduated from the film school in 1983.

After his graduation he began work on the Europe trilogy, which started with The Element of Crime (Forbrydelsens element 1984). He has made 32 films since and has received numerous international awards and honors for his films.

Von Trier often shoots his scenes for longer periods than most directors to encourage actors to stay in character. In Dogville he let actors stay in character for hours, in the style of method acting. The rules and restrictions are a break from the traditional Hollywood production. In order to create original art Von Trier feels that filmmakers must distinguish themselves stylistically from other films, often by placing restrictions on the filmmaking process.

27th April 2008; Kieslowski Film Festival

Kieslowski Film Festival

Three films of Polish master Krzysztof Kieslowski
27^th April ; 9.45 am to 6.30 pm
Coimbatore Cosmopolitan Club
Race course
Call 94430 39630

Kieslowski

Kieślowski was born in Warsaw and grew up in several small towns, moving wherever his engineer father, a tuberculosis patient, could find treatment. At sixteen, he briefly attended a firemen's training school, but dropped out after three months. Without any career goals, he then entered the College for Theatre Technicians in Warsaw in 1957 .

Leaving college , Kieślowski joined the Łódź Film School, the famed Polish film school that also produced Roman Polański and Andrzej Wajda. He attended from 1964 to 1968, during a period in which the government allowed a relatively high degree of artistic freedom at the school. Kieślowski decided to make documentary films. Kieslowski also married his lifelong love, Maria (Marysia) Cautillo, during his final year in school (m. January 21, 1967 to his death), and they had a daughter, Marta (b. January 8, 1972).

Kieślowski's early documentaries focused on the everyday lives of city dwellers, workers, and soldiers. He soon found that attempting to depict Polish life accurately brought him into conflict with the authorities. His television film Workers '71, was only shown in a drastically censored form. He abandoned documentary filmmaking due the censorship of Workers '71. He decided that fiction not only allowed more artistic freedom, but could portray everyday life more truthfully.

Kieslowski’s work consists of 40 feature / documentary/ short films made during his short life span which include the evergreen classic Tricolours Trilogy of three films - Red, Blue and White and his 10 parts Dekalog. Series. The death of Krzysztof Kieslowski in March 1996 was widely mourned.

Three Colors: Blue

Three Colors: Blue is the first part of Kieslowski's trilogy. Blue is the story of Julie who loses her husband, an acclaimed European composer and her young daughter. The film's theme of liberty is manifested in Julie's attempt to start life anew free of personal commitments, belongings grief and love. She intends to spiritually commit suicide by withdrawing from the world and live completely independently, anonymously and in solitude in the Parisian metropolis. Despite her intentions, people from her former and present life intrude with their own needs. However, the reality created by the people who need and care about her, a surprising discovery and the music around which the film revolves heals Julie and irresistibly draws her back to the land of the
living.

In this movie, Kieslowski attaches an almost subconscious significance to the color blue, but primarily he focuses on Binoche's luminous face, and the way her subtle shifts in emotion flicker and disappear. Binoche's quiet, heartbreaking presence becomes spellbinding; her performance won the best actress prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1993.

This is a quiet, subtle film. Kieslowski and his cinematographer do a lot with the lighting, particularly in the scenes in the swimming pool. Those shots are awash in soft, evocative blue hues that give the scenes an exquisite, dream-like feeling.

Year : 1993 Run time 98 minutes French with English subtitles

Three Colors:White

Krzysztof Kieslowski opens the trilogy of films with Blue and ends by Red. The second installment in the series, this film White is designed to explore the universal notion of equality. Zbigniew Zamachowski stars in this dramatic look at a man who, when his entire world is destroyed by his ex-wife (Julie Delpy), vows revenge, only to have the tables turned on him in a very unexpected way.

White is an ironic comedy brimming over with the hard laughs of despair, ecstasy, ambition, and longing played in a minor key by . Polish immigrant Karol is desperate to get out of France. He's obsessed with his French soon-to-be ex-wife , his French bank account is frozen, and he's fed up with the inequality of it all. Penniless, he convinces a fellow Pole to smuggle him home The story evolves into a wickedly funny antiromance, an inverse Romeo and Juliet.

Year 1994 ; Runtime 92 minutes ; Polish & French with English subtitles

Three Colors:RED

Praised by critics nationwide, RED is a seductive story -- and the unknowable mystery of coincidence. The final chapter in Krzystof Kieslowski's acclaimed "Three Colors" trilogy, RED stars Irene Jacob (THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE) as a young model Valentine living in Geneva.

Because of a dog, she meets a retired judge who spies his neighbours' phone calls, not for money but to feed his cynicism. The film is the story ofrelationships between human beings, Valentine and the judge, but also other people who may not be aware of the relationship they have with Valentine or/and the old judge.

Irene Jacob's character becomes an aural witness to the secret lives of those we think we know. Kieslowski cleverly wraps up the trilogy with a device that brings together the principals of all three films. It's a strong, unique piece that reflects upon the ubiquity of images in the modern world and the parallel subjugation of meaningful communication.

Year 1994 Run time : 100 minutes : , French with English sub titles

Lunch and refreshments will be served during the
full day screening against payment of Rs.50

Screening supported by Hollywood DVD Shoppe
S B Colony , Coimbatore.

20th April 2008; Screening of RUSSIAN ARK

Stunning, haunting, fascinating...
a powerful and moving insight
into a beautiful, complex culture.

Russian Ark

A film by Aleksandr Sokurov
Country : Russia
Year : 2002
Run time : 99 minutes
Russian with English sub titles
Call : 9443039630

20th April 2008 ; 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium

A 44 minutes short documentary on making of this film : In One Breath: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark will be screened after the main film.

"Russian Ark" is a magnificent conjuring act, an eerie historical mirage evoked in a single sweeping wave of the hand by Alexander Sokurov. The 96-minute film, shot in high-definition video in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, consists of one continuous, uninterrupted take. Thanks to recent technological innovation, it is the longest unbroken shot in the history of film. As the Steadicam operated by Tilman Büttner (the German cinematographer of "Run Lola Run") floats through the museum's galleries, a cast of 2,000 actors and extras act out random, whimsical moments of Russian imperial history that dissolve into one other like chapters of a dream.

Mr. Sokurov, who has always been drawn to historical subjects, has said that he wanted to capture "the flow of time" in a pure cinematic language that suggests "a single breath." And that's what "Russian Ark" accomplishes as it drops in on Russian monarchs from Peter the Great to Nicholas II and catches them living their lives unaware that they're being observed. These keyhole flashes from the past evoke a sense of history that is at once intimate and distanced, and ultimately sad: so much life, so much beauty, swallowed in the mists of time.

"Russian Ark" is a ghost story set in the Hermitage, the museum that is the pride of St. Petersburg and the repository — the ark, if you will — of more Russian history and culture than any other place. Among its components are the Winter Palace (the former residence of the Russian czars) and sections devoted to Russian history and to the life and work of Alexander Pushkin.

The film is narrated in a thoughtful murmur by a contemporary artist who awakens to find himself lost in the 1800's amid a jostling crowd pouring through a side entrance of the Hermitage. As he follows the flow, he catches sight of another out-of-place figure, the Marquis (Sergey Dreiden), a frizzy-haired 19th-century French diplomat dressed in black and the only person to acknowledge his presence. As the two strays wander through the galleries, they carry on a sporadic dialogue in which the Frenchman continually snipes at Russian culture.

Along the way they chance upon Peter the Great beating one of his generals, and Catherine the Great breaking away from a rehearsal of her own play to search frantically for a place to relieve herself.

In another, darker time warp, the Marquis strays through the wrong door and finds himself in a chilly outdoor workshop amid drifting snow, and listens dumbfounded to a description of 20th-century horrors that have yet to take place.

The movie culminates in what may well be the ne plus ultra of period cinematic pomp: a re-creation of the last great royal ball held at the Hermitage under Czar Nicholas II in 1913, shortly before the Bolshevik Revolution. To the strains of Glinka, hundreds of glitteringly attired courtiers dance the mazurka to a live symphony orchestra.This extraordinary sequence more powerfully evokes the historical blindness of an entitled elite blissfully oblivious to the fact that it is standing in quicksand that is about to give.

(Courtesy: New York Times)

Russian Ark's Cinematographer Tilman Buttner Interview

Tilman Buttner is the celebrated German cinematographer of "Run Lola Run". Click on the captions below for his interview on filming of Russian Ark .


INTERVIEW: Achieving the Cinematic Impossible; "Russian Ark" DP Tilman Buttner Discusses What It's Like To Make History

Alexander Sokurov

Alexander Sokurov is a Russian film maker, who possesses an enormous cinematic gift. Sokurov's style of filmmaking is often compared to that of Andrei Tarkovsky. However, Sokurov himself, while not resenting the comparison, does resist this linkage.

Both of them are "spiritual" filmmakers in the sense that, in their art they concern themselves with profound questions of human existence and seek to give visible expression to the INNER reality of their being. However, it is precisely in their inner realities that the two could not be more different from each other.

Alexander Sokurov was born in Russia in 1951 .After graduating from high school in 1968, the future filmmaker entered Gorky University (Department of History). While a student he began working as a staff member for the Gorky television .In the course of 6 years at the GorkyGorky University. television Sokurov created several films and live TV shows. In 1974 he got his first degree in History from the

In 1975 Sokurov entered the Producer's Department at the All-Union Cinematography Institute (VGIK, Moscow) (Documentary Film studio of Alexander Zguridi). As an excellent student of VGIK he was granted the Eisenstein Scholarship.

His first feature film, which later received a number of awards, was "The Lonely Voice of a Man," after an original story by the Russian writer Andrey Platonov; it was not accepted as a graduating project. It was at that time that he received support from the outstanding film director Andrey Tarkovsky, who was out of favor with the authorities at that time and very highly appreciated Sokurov's first work. Sokurov's friendship with Tarkovsky did not come to an end even when the latter left Russia.

With Tarkovsky's recommendation letter Sokurov was employed by the film studio "Lenfilm" in 1980, where he worked on his first feature films. At the same time Sokurov worked at the Leningrad Studio for Documentary Films, where he has made all of his documentaries at different times.

In the late 80s a number of his early feature and documentary films were released for public performance and represented the Russian film industry at many international festivals. In the 80-90s he sometimes made several feature and documentary films in one year.

He has been a participant and laureate of many international festivals. Every year his films are shown in various foreign countries. Several times he has received awards from international festivals.

In 1995 the European Film Academy listed Sokurov as being among the best 100 directors of world cinema. At the present moment he is in the process of founding a film studio, "Bereg," for non-commercial feature and documentary films. The foundation for this venture is laid by Sokurov's camera crew at "Lenfilm".