Upcoming Soviet film screenings & events at MoMA, NY

UPCOMING FILM SCREENINGS & EVENTS
Museum of Modern Art, New York City


Aelita 
1924. USSR. Directed Yakov Protazanov. A year after Alexei Tolstoy wrote his space-travel novel Aelita, the Decline of Mars Protozanov directed this early Mezhrabpom production, which very well may be the first feature-length science-fiction film. A young Soviet engineer goes to Mars, finds it a capitalist society, and, with the Queen of Mars, participates in a revolution. The distinguished Constructivist sets and costumes are by Aleksandra Ekster. Silent with live musical accompaniment. 100 min.


Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)
Friday, April 20, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)

Loss of Sensation 
1935. USSR. Directed by Alexander Andriyevsky. Virtually unseen in the U.S. for 75 years, Andriyevsky's liberal film version of Karel Capek's popular 1920 play, R.U.R., in which the notion of robots was introduced, imagines industrialists getting rid of human workers in favor of automatons who respond to the notes of a saxophone. Print courtesy of Gosfilmofond, Moscow. 87 min.


Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Introduced by Alexander Schwarz)
Saturday, April 14, 2012, 5:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2


Revolt of the Fisherman 
1934. USSR. Directed by Erwin Piscator. Controversial upon its release, this experimental, pseudo-Expressionist drama was directed by the celebrated German stage director Piscator. Silent with live musical accompaniment. 70 min.


The Red Dream Factory 
2012. Germany. Directed by Alexander Schwarz. A documentary about Soviet and Russian cinema. 56 min.


Thursday, April 12, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Introduced by Schwarz. Musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)
Sunday, April 15, 2012, 5:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)


The End of St. Petersburg 
1927. USSR. Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin. Commissioned to make this film for the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Pudovkin traced the transformation of the city from a Tsarist Mecca where stock-market speculators gloat over war profits into Leningrad, a center of revolutionary activity, through the journey of a young peasant who comes to the city and learns firsthand about the will to change. Silent with live musical accompaniment. 80 min.


Thursday, April 12, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)
Sunday, April 15, 2012, 2:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)


Thaw 
1931. USSR. Directed by Boris Barnet. Barnet, a humanist filmmaker, convincingly and dramatically recounts the conflicts between peasants and kulaks (owners of small pieces of land). Print courtesy of Cinémathèque Francaise. 65 min.


Friday, April 13, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)
Saturday, April 14, 2012, 7:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)


Outskirts/The Patriots/Frontier 
1933. USSR. Directed by Boris Banet. Banet's quietly observational masterwork follows life in a small Russian village before and during World War I. Print courtesy of Austrian Film Museum, Vienna. 96 min.


Friday, April 13, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Saturday, April 14, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2


One of Many 
1927. USSR. Directed by Nikolai Chodatchew. An animated film about international movie stars. Print courtesy Gosfilmofond, Moscow. 15 min.


A Kiss for Mary Pickford 
1927. USSR. Directed by Sergei Komarov. Komarov, a pupil of Lev Kuleshov, fabricated this delightful comedy about star-struck lovers in part from footage of the visit Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbnanks, then husband and wife, made to the Soviet Union. Unbeknownst to them, they became, thanks to clever editing, major figures in a knockabout romance. Silent with live musical accompaniment. 75 min.


Monday, April 16, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)
Saturday, April 21, 2012, 5:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)


The Golden Lake 
1935. USSR. Directed by Vladimir Schneyderow. The Golden Lake is probably the closest Soviet cinema ever came to an American Western. It features tremendous landscape photography, a search for gold in the Altai region, a hero (a Russian engineer), and a group of villains: mostly native people led by an evil Siberian shaman. Print courtesy Gosfilmofond, Moskow. 83 min.


Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Saturday, April 21, 2012, 7:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2


St. Jorgen’s Day 
1930. USSR. Directed by Yakov Protazanov. Protazanov's anti-clerical comedy is reminiscent of Gogol in its satire of provincial life. Two thieves try to take advantage of all the money pilgrims are pouring into the coffers of St. Jorgen's church as the saint's feast day approaches and the priests decide to make a film about his miracles. Chaos, not miracles, ensues. Print courtesy of Munich Film Museum. Silent film. 92 min.


Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)
Saturday, April 21, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)

Storm over Asia (Heir to Genghis Khan) 
1928. USSR. Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin. Pudovkin's brilliant fable is an epic retelling of the 1920 uprising of the Mongolians against the British, who had propped up a nomadic fur hunter (who may indeed have been an heir to Genghis Khan), only to learn that he was not the puppet for whom they had hoped. Silent with live musical accompaniment. 110 min.


Thursday, April 19, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model)

The Road to Life 
1931. USSR. Directed by Nikolai Ekk. The first sound film (and an inventive one at that) made in the USSR is a cheeky tale of young men, formerly street kids, who happily become members of a work team in a labor camp. Miscreants, however, threaten the good works and reputation of the collective force. 104 min.


Thursday, April 19, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Sunday, April 22, 2012, 2:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2

Chess Fever 
1925. USA. Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin. This sharp comedy, Pudovkin's first film, was photographed during an international chess tournament in Moscow. Using editing principles he learned in Lev Kuleshov's cinema workshop, Pudovkin ingeniously combines actual newsreel footage of the competition with footage of actors shot in the studio. 25 min.


Mother 
1926. USSR. Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin. With its simple theme of a working-class mother developing political consciousness through participation in revolutionary activity, this film established Pudovkin as one of the major figures of the new Soviet cinema. Silent, with live musical accompaniment. 95 min.


Friday, April 20, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)
Sunday, April 22, 2012, 5:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)


Program is approximately 90 minutes.


Workers Newsreel Unemployment Special 
1930. USA. Film and Photo League of the Workers International Relief (Mezrapbom). Edited by Leo Seltzer. 7 min.


Bonus March 
1932. USA. Film and Photo League of the Workers International Relief (Mezrapbom). Edited by Leo Seltzer. 12 min.


Passaic Textile Strike 
1926. USA. Made by the American branch of Workers International Relief (WIR). Made by the American branch of Workers International Relief (WIR). This account of the yearlong strike by workers, mainly immigrants, in the mills around Passaic begins with an "acted" introduction explaining the need for a job action, but much of the film is a document of the strike itself, which had not ended by the time film was finished. 70 min.


Monday, April 23, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Friday, April 27, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2


Horizon 
1933. USSR. Directed by Lev Kuleshov. A melodrama about tsarist anti-Semitism; emigration to America where Jews are now victims to capitalists; and a return to Soviet Russia where religion, it appears, is of no consequence. Print courtesy of Österreiches Filmmuseum, Vienna. 102 min.


Wednesday, April 25, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2
Friday, April 27, 2012, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2


Miss Mend 
1926. USSR. Directed by Feodor Ozep, Boris Barnet. Ozep and Barnet collaborated on this action-packed 21-reel (equivalent to three feature-length films) serial of a feisty woman and her three companions doing battle with a super-villain, Chiche, who threatens the world with a strain of Black Plague. Print courtesy of Munich Film Museum. 15-minute intermission. 240 min.


Thursday, April 26, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Ben Model. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)
Saturday, April 28, 2012, 2:30 p.m., Theater 2, T2 (Musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin. Live English translation by Anna Kadysheva)

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1264