Andrei Tarkovsky
Sculpting In Time

December 16 - 31, 2016

“What is art? (...) Like a declaration of love: the consciousness of our dependence on each other. A confession. An unconscious act that none the less reflects the true meaning of life—love and sacrifice.”
A. Tarkovsky

Pera Film is saluting Andrei Tarkovsky (1922-1986), the distinguished Soviet director whose austerely poetic, deeply personal films made him one of the most treasured artists of his generation. Tarkovsky followed his prize-winning short piece, The Steamroller and The Violin (1960), with a lyrical feature debut Ivan’s Childhood (1962). The film portrays a young boy’s espionage activities with partisans during WWII and was awarded at the Venice Film Festival. Tarkovsky followed this with the epic, allegorical Andrei Rublev (1966). Over three years in the making, Andrei Rublev follows the life of a 15th century icon painter as he loses faith in society, God and art, finally achieving spiritual revitalization in the famous, concluding bell-making scene. Shelved for several years for its references to the plight of the contemporary Soviet artist, the film was released to wide acclaim in the West in 1969. Like most of Tarkovsky’s work, it is a slow-moving, sumptuously textured canvas with a richly emotional climax. Most of Tarkovsky’s subsequent films deal in some degree with the otherworldly: in Solaris (1972), a space-traveler’s fantasies are conjured into reality; Stalker (1979) takes place in “the zone,” a mysterious, forbidden wasteland; and The Sacrifice (1986) unfolds in the final hours before a nuclear Armageddon; The Mirror (1976), an intensely personal, multi-layered aural and visual poem, recalls an artist’s youth in the Soviet Union during WWII. Tarkovsky’s real-life mother plays the mother of the artist and his father, the esteemed poet Arseniy Tarkovsky, reads his own works on the soundtrack. Tarkovsky began working outside the USSR in the early 1980s, making Nostalgia in Italy in 1983. He then worked with several members of Ingmar Bergman’s filmmaking team, including actor Erland Josephson and cinematographer Sven Nykvist, to make The Sacrifice (1986) in Sweden. Josephson plays a celebrated, retired artist/intellectual who can only avert a worldwide holocaust by making a supreme personal sacrifice. Visually sumptuous and extremely slow-paced, the film is a supreme summation of what Tarkovsky considered his most crucial concern: “the absence in our culture of room for spiritual existence.” The Sacrifice won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes in the same year that Tarkovsky died of lung cancer in Paris at age 54.


in collaboration

December 16

20:00 Solaris

December 17

14:00 Ivan's Childhood

16:00 Stalker

December 18

13:00 Solaris

17:00 Stalker

December 22

19:00 Andrei Rublev

December 23

19:00 The Mirror

21:00 Nostalgia

December 24

13:00 Andrei Rublev

17:00 Sacrifice

December 27

19:00 Sacrifice

December 29

19:00 Voyage In Time

One Day In the Life of Andrei Arsenevich

December 30

19:00 Ivan's Childhood

21:00 Nostalgia

December 31

14:00 Voyage In Time

One Day In the Life of Andrei Arsenevich

17:00 The Mirror

Ivan's Childhood

Ivan's Childhood

Andrei Rublev

Andrei Rublev

Solaris

Solaris

The Mirror

The Mirror

Stalker

Stalker

Nostalgia

Nostalgia

Voyage In Time

Voyage In Time

Sacrifice

Sacrifice

One Day In the Life of Andrei Arsenevich

One Day In the Life of Andrei Arsenevich

Program Trailer

Andrei Tarkovsky
Sculpting In Time

Pera Film is saluting Andrei Tarkovsky (1922-1986), the distinguished Soviet director whose austerely poetic, deeply personal films made him one of the most treasured artists of his generation.

Rineke Dijkstra Look At Me!

Rineke Dijkstra Look At Me!

“The portrait tells us that there is an inner and an outer dimension of the human condition; it provides—or should provide—information about both the physical and psychological character of an individual.” 

Female Attires from the Perspective of Painters

Female Attires from the Perspective of Painters

Due to its existence behind closed doors, the lifestyle and attires of the women in the Harem have been one of the most fascinating topics for western painters and art enthusiasts alike.

Venuses Throughout History

Venuses Throughout History

José Sancho does not conceal the voluptuousness of his female torsos; he highlights it. These torsos are symmetrical from front, but on the other hand, from the side, the juxtaposition of concave and convex forms creates dynamism.