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SSEES Centenary Film Festival: Dovzhenko’s Zvenyhora
October 13, 2015 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
free
WHEN:
TUE 13 October 2015, 18:30 – 20:30
WHERE:
Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon St, London, WC1H 0AH
Admission:
FREE Book here
The screening will be introduced by Dr Rory Finnin, Senior Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies, University of Cambridge.
Zvenyhora (Zvenigora) is a 1927 silent revolutionary epic by Oleksandr Dovzhenko and is an initial film in the director’s Ukraine Trilogy (along with Arsenal and Earth). The film is almost religious in tone, relating a millennium of Ukrainian history through the story of an old man who tells his grandson about a treasure buried in a mountain.
“As the lights went on, we felt that we had just witnessed a memorable event in the development of the cinema”. Sergei Eisenstein on Zvenyhora
The film wonderfully blends both lyricism and politics and uses its central construct to build a montage praising Ukrainian industrialisation, attacking the European bourgeoisie, celebrating the beauty of the Ukrainian steppe and re-telling ancient folklore.
Zvenyhora is a most remarkable avant-garde film, which has a unique style in its approach and disregards the more traditional storytelling devices. Thus at the time of release, the film was widely reviewed in the press but generally regarded as not conforming with Soviet aesthetics.
This screening is part of a SSEES Festival. See full programme here.