NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF RUSSIAN FILMS
October 2001

Darfi Olya, Detkina Tanya, Stolpovskaya Olga, Troitsky Dmitry, Velikanov Andrej and Julia

EXPERIMENTAL FILMS FROM RUSSIA

AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

Curated by Nina Zaretskaya

The Third Annual New York Festival of Russian Films will take place from October 14-21 at The Ziegfeld Theater and Clearview Cinemas. The program includes American premieres of Nikita Mihalkov's BARBER OF SIBERIA and Alexander Sokurov's TAURUS, which was an official selection at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, as well as over 15 new Russian feature films, several documentaries and short films.

Andrey Velikanov's GOD WITH US (1994, 10 minutes, VHS). A clip – style view of an inner world of contemporary Russians. The name of the piece is taken after a phrase which appears briefly, incidentally on the screen: during a demonstration in Moscow, the followers of Christian Orthodoxy carry a poster with these words.

Tatiana Detkina's THE BATS (1995, 7 minutes, Hi8). The basis of the plot, the forced transformation of a bat into a teddy bear, arose from the author's communication with biologists.

Olga Stolpovskaya & Dmitry Troitsky's BRUNER'$ TRIAL (1998, 10.5 minutes, Betacam). The artist against the "Art Mafia." The film is based on an actual event at Stedelik Museum in Amsterdam, 1997. Since that time, when the Russian artist Alexander Brener drew a dollar sign on Kazimir Malevich's picture "White Cross" (1927), there have been heated discussions among art critics and lawyers on how to classify the case: as an art action or an act of vandalism.

Olga Stolpovskaya & Victor Alimpiev's SUBSCRIBERS (2000, 12 minutes, MiniDV). They tried hard to fly away but they failed to... A deconstructed story about a flight, as a metaphor for a "dream." There is a telephone dialogue between an invalid (or a man pretending to be an invalid) and a woman who introduced herself as Katya, which also speaks of "flight."

Olya Darfi's LABYRINTH (2000, 35 minutes, 35mm). Seven short stories, united by a "through topic," which touches upon the significant problems of a creative person's place and role in contemporary society: his life and behavior, love, communicative problems, father-son relationships, the surrounding world viewed as a mirror labyrinth.

Leonid Tishkov's SNOWANGEL (1 998, 9 minutes, VHS). A mysterious image of a spiritual journey to the Ural mountains: the place where the filmmaker was born and that remains the source of his inspiration.

Olga Yegorova & Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya's NOTES FOR AN IDEAL SWEETHEART (1999, 5 minutes, Betacam). A famous couple from St. Petersburg, Tsaplya and Gluklya work on the edge between art and fashion. Their favorite genre is live performance, sometimes turned into a video/film. In this particular piece, a woman's dress becomes a film hero and lives its own life. Its Suffering and Death acquire symbolic meaning, a message to a loved one.

Platon Infante-Arana's HOMOURBAN (1997, 3 minutes, Betacam). An attempt to synthesize human and urban rhythms in a constructive way, creating a totally new context for both components.

Andrey Silvestrov's FATE (1997, 14.5 minutes, Hi8). The hero gets lost in a virtual space, the game of thoughts, and makes an attempt upon God himself masked as Santa Claus. An ironic version of the so-called "identity problems" of the young generation.

Alexander Roytburd's PSYCHEDELIC INVERSION OF THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN INTO SERGEI EISENSTEIN'S TAUTOLOGICAL HALLUCINATION
(1998, 10 minutes, Betacam). This is an extravagant but delicate remake of Eisenstein's glorious BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. The artist, preparing the famous scene on the Odessa Steps with the newly-shot footage, enacts a sharp parody on the method of montage.

Total running time: 117 minutes.

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