April 19 - May 17, 2026 Sergei Eisenstein Restorations Series | “Death Day,” THUNDER OVER MEXICO, “Outtakes,” “Time in the Sun,” Mexican Symphony: “Zapotec Village,” “Idol Of Hope,” “The Conquering Cross,” “The Disaster in Oaxaca,” IDOLS BEHIND ALTARS Photo credit: Kino Classics, Filmmakers Showcase
ABOUT THE SERIES: Sergei Eisenstein’s epic film project to imaginatively experience and record all aspects of Mexican life and culture found several prosaic outlets in programmatic styled, educational films produced by others. More products of their individual times, the short and long travelogues can now be viewed as alternative fragments of Eisenstein’s unfinished vision. Unwittingly, Eisenstein provided others with the footage to compose versions independent of his authorship but all tied to his visionary approach to documentary cinema. Viewed together as a whole these short films comprise a film that never was, or will be, finished by Eisenstein. Instead, an exotic collage of epiphanies has been realized through the collective “world of constant juxtaposition.” We see many of the same images and sequences, even multiple angles of the same shots, altered in slightly differing configurations and contexts. The dizzying display of images embellished by a variety of novel soundtracks comes as close as it ever will to what the filmmaker actually realized on film during his complex aesthetic confrontation with Mexico in 1930-32.