<<< August 12 - 27, 2005 >>>

There will be one screening in this series at the Aero Theatre (September 15, 2005).

For an all-too-brief period in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, directors Larisa Shepitko and Elem Klimov were the golden couple of Soviet-era cinema. She was brilliantly talented, strikingly beautiful and acclaimed for her intense, metaphysical portraits of souls in turmoil (HEAT, YOU AND I, THE ASCENT). He was equally gifted, a social satirist of the first order who mercilessly skewered Soviet society earning high-ranking enemies along the way, in film such as WELCOME, ADVENTURES OF A DENTIST, AGONY-RASPUTIN. Like many love stories, theirs had a tragic ending: Shepitko was killed in 1979 in a car accident while scouting locations for her next film, FAREWELL TO MATYORA, a project her grief-stricken husband Klimov would eventually finish as a testament to his wife. Klimov would go on to direct only one more feature, the harrowing, anti-war masterpiece COME AND SEE (1985), before his death in 2003.

This touring series, organized by Alla Verlotsky of Seagull Films in New York, is a rare opportunity to see films by these legendary Russian directors - including the long-unavailable, full-length version of Klimov’s AGONY-RASPUTIN - ! "Farewell: A Tribute to Elem Klimov and Larisa Shepitko" is a presentation of Seagull Films in collaboration with the Russian Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography and Cineconcern Mosfilm. Generous support for the series is provided by the Trust for Mutual Understanding, George Gund III and Iara Lee.

Friday, August 12 - 7:30 PM

Klimov/Shepitko Tribute:

WELCOME, OR NO TRESPASSING (DOBRO POZHALOVAT’, ILI POSTORONNIM VKHOD ZAPRESHEN), 1964, 74 min. Director Elem Klimov’s classic comedy satirizes the conventions of a children’s Young Pioneer summer camp. The hero, Inochkin, is expelled for misbehaving but he sneaks back into the camp, and is hidden by other children hide him. Klimov daringly mixes a direct critique of the Soviet system with hilarious fantasy sequences. Considered too dangerous by studio officials, the film was only released on Khrushchev’s orders. When he saw it, though, he enjoyed it, and asked why it wasn’t being shown. NOT ON VIDEO!

HEAT (ZNOY), 1963, 85 min. Larisa Shepitko’s debut feature, made when she was 25 years old, HEAT announced the arrival a major new talent and went on to win prizes at the Leningrad and Karlovy Vary Film Festivals. It was also made in grueling conditions on the barren steppes, the young director falling ill and having to direct from a stretcher. An idealistic high school graduate goes to work on a state farm, only to clash with its authoritarian, Stalinist leader. Shepitko’s haunting depictions of the wind-scoured landscape mirrored the bitter emotional and spiritual hardships faced by the characters themselves. NOT ON VIDEO!

Saturday, August 13 - 7:00 PM Spielberg Theatre

Klimov/Shepitko Tribute:

THE ASCENT (VOSKHOZHDENIE ), 1976, 111 min. Director Larisa Shepitko’s transcendent, metaphysical masterpiece, THE ASCENT takes place in a Byelorussian war zone of occupation, captivity and collaboration. The film alternates between Breughel-esque winter landscapes and tightly shot interiors as we examine the consciences and fates of two Soviet prisoners of war. The film took best prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1977, and remains a completely unique example of Shepitko’s cinematic vision, on a par with the greatest films of Tarkovsky and Paradjanov.

Preceded by: LARISA, 1980, 25 min. Klimov’s documentary frames his wife Shepitko’s life and career, alternating between photographs and sequences from her films. Movingly, the film reaches its conclusion with the last sequence Shepitko ever shot. Throughout, Shepitko meditates on what it means to create and live. NOT ON VIDEO!

Klimov/Shepitko Tribute:

Restored Original Version! AGONY-RASPUTIN (AGONIIA-RASPUTIN), 1974 - 1981, 152 min. Director Elem Klimov takes an experimental approach to the tale of the legendary mad monk, Rasputin. Klimov alternates between documentary footage from the period, which he combines with color sequences of Rasputin’s deviancy, depravity and destruction. Completed in 1975 and originally intended for the 60^th anniversary of the Revolution, AGONY was shelved until 1981. We are pleased to offer viewers a chance to see a pristine print of Klimov’s vision. NOT ON VIDEO!

Spielberg Theatre

Klimov/Shepitko Tribute:

YOU AND I (TY I IA ), 1971, 97 min. Written by the brilliant screenwriter Genadii Shpalikov, YOU AND I demonstrates once again director Larisa Shepitko's mastery of the character study. Her third film examines the difficulties of the life and work of a Soviet scientist/doctor who is looking for peace and his place in a world where he won't have to compromise his ideals. Featuring Russian cultural icon Yuri Vizbor, the film recalls Marlen Khutsiev's JULY RAIN and Ilya Averbakh's MONOLOGUE in its direct and personal portrayal of the Soviet intelligentsia. And like these films, YOU AND I remains a ground-breaking testament to the culturally innovative Thaw period, the only "liberal" decade in the history of the Soviet Union. NOT ON VIDEO!

Friday, August 26 – 7:30 PM

Klimov/Shepitko Tribute:

FAREWELL TO MATYORA (PROSHCHANIE S MATYOROI ) , 1981, 129 min. This film was begun by Klimov’s wife, Larisa Sheptiko, who died tragically on the first day of shooting in 1979. Overwhelmed with grief, her husband Elem Klimov decided to take over direction of the film as a tribute to her, and the result is one of the most unforgettable Russian films ever made. Based on a novella by Valentin Rasputin, Klimov’s film captures the struggle between progress, in the form of a massive new hydro-electric dam, and the small hamlet that will be flooded by the dam’s ever-rising waters, displacing villagers who’ve lived there for countless generations. Here, Klimov stages some of his most haunting, indelible sequences: those of ghostly figures silently crossing the water into the mist. NOT ON VIDEO!

Saturday, August 27 – 7:00 PM SPIELBERG THEATRE

Klimov/Shepitko Tribute:

COME AND SEE (IDI I SMOTRI), 1986, 142 min. Director Elem Klimov’s final film remains his most harrowing. Shot in muted colors that even more grimly emphasize the barbarity of war in Nazi occupied Byelorussia. COME AND SEE follows the teen-aged Flyora first into a band of partisans, then back to his own destroyed village, where, with him, discover firsthand the brutal ordeals suffered by peasants. One of the most unflinchingly powerful depictions of the devastations of war ever put on film. A true masterpiece. COME AND SEE won first prize at the 1985 Moscow Film Festival.