Film series: Cosmic futures 4 November 2018 – 10 February 2019

In 1915, Russian artist Kazimir Malevich’s Black square heralded a beginning and end for modern art. Cosmic futures asks, where to from here? In the wake of the Russian Revolution in 1917, cinema became a new testing ground for bold aesthetic experimentation. Malevich’s impulse to free art from the ‘dead weight of the real world’ migrated from the black square to the white screen. A new utopian state needed a new film language.

Screening from 4 November 2018 to 10 February 2019 in conjunction with the exhibition Masters of modern art from the Hermitage, this film series unites early Soviet slapstick, Moscow high melodrama and sci-fi masterpieces. Cosmic futures begins with filmmakers who trained their cameras on the cities and skies. Revolutionary energy spills over in the formal daring of Vertov (Man with a movie camera) and the zany humour of Medvedkin’s New Moscow. The freewheeling experimentation of the 1920s halted under a new regime. How to explore avant-garde horizons when Stalin was supposedly the only one able to see the future? Mid-century filmmakers looked inward to stories of personal transformation through romance (The cranes are flying) and heroism (The ascent).

With a mini Tarkovsky retrospective, we delve further into the mysteries of deep space only to find that the future reflects the here and now. The season concludes with contemporary Russian master Andrey Zvyagintsev who reckons with the political realities of a disappointed dream.

Films

• 4 November – Aelita: Queen of Mars (director Yakov Protazanov, 1924, 35mm)

• 7, 11 November – Russian ark (director Alexander Sokurov, 2002, 35mm)

• 14, 18 November – Man with a movie camera (director Dziga Vertov, 1929, 35mm)

• 21, 25 November – New Moscow (director Alexander Medvedkin, 1938, digital)

• 28 November, 2 December – The ascent (director Larisa Shepitko, 1977, 35mm)

• 5, 9 December – The cranes are flying (director Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957, 35mm)

• 12, 16 December – Solaris (director Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972, 35mm)

• 9, 13 January – Stalker (director Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979, 35mm)

• 10, 16 January – The mirror (director Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974, 35mm)

• 23, 27 January – From the East: D'Est (director Chantal Akerman, 1993, 16mm)

• 30 January, 3 February – The return (director Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2003, 35mm)

• 6, 10 February – Leviathan (director Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014, 35mm)