Wind demons and crystal palaces... Shimmering aquatic gill-men and limitless vistas of outer space... For over eight decades Russian cinema has had an inspired filmmaking tradition that encompasses science fiction, folkloric fantasy, and absurdist humor, producing wildly entertaining films. Pera Film in collaboration with Seagull Films presents From the Tsars to the Stars: Russian Fantastic Cinema, a program featuring rare films from the Russian cinema’s long tradition of fantastical science fiction.
“Fantastika is a general term we’re using for all of it: science fiction, fantasy, horror, fables,” says Robert Skotak, co-conceiver of the series and an Oscar winner for his special-effects contributions to Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. “I mean, Cosmic Voyage [1936], which hasn’t really been seen in the West whatsoever, is a heroic tale of a Communist society traveling to the moon! It was made during Stalin’s purges and the push to modernize. But it’s also as accurate a picture of space travel as one could conjecture at the time. Fanciful sequences of stop-motion animation, extravagant effects: This is an entertaining movie!”
Beginning with the pioneering animation of Ladislaw Starewicz, through the silent classic Aelita: Queen of Mars, and on to the astonishing visions of Aleksandr Ptushko and Pavel Klushantsev, Russian genre cinema was amazingly colorful, technologically advanced, and thematically ambitious. Master Andrei Tarkovsky took this further, fashioning the highly philosophical and feverishly cinematic sci-fi epics Solaris and Stalker. Still other films, such as Karen Shakhnazarov's remarkable, black comic meditation on Soviet history during the Perestroika era Zero City and Alexei Fedorchenko's First on the Moon, are crafty allegories of an ideological system in its waning days.
Years before Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, Soviet visual-effects artists were creating breathtaking visions of humankind's voyage to outer space. In retrospect, an added fascination of these films is the Soviet party line suffusing fictive space exploration with a real-world mission—to bring the revolution, at least figuratively, to the solar system and beyond.
From the Tsars to the Stars: Russian Fantastik Cinema was originally presented in 2006 by Seagull Films, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the American Cinematheque in collaboration with Concern Mosfilm, Russian State Archive Gosfilmofond and M-Film Studio. The program is curated by Alla Verlotsky, Robert Skotak and Dennis Bartok.
In collaboration with
October 28
06:00 Stalker
October 30
08:00 Aelita, Queen of Mars
October 31
02:00 The Amphibian Man
November 7
19:00 To the Stars by Hard Ways
November 8
04:00 Aelita, Queen of Mars
06:00 The Amphibian Man
November 11
17:00 Planet of Storms
November 14
07:00 Solaris
November 21
19:00 First on the Moon
November 22
04:00 Planet of Storms
06:00 To the Stars by Hard Ways
November 28
15:00 Solaris
18:00 Stalker
December 9
07:00 Zero City
December 12
19:00 Stalker
October 30
20:00 Aelita, Queen of Mars
October 31
14:00 The Amphibian Man
November 7
19:00 To the Stars by Hard Ways
November 8
16:00 Aelita, Queen of Mars
18:00 The Amphibian Man
November 11
17:00 Planet of Storms
November 14
19:00 Solaris
November 21
19:00 First on the Moon
November 22
16:00 Planet of Storms
18:00 To the Stars by Hard Ways
November 28
15:00 Solaris
18:00 Stalker
December 9
19:00 Zero City
December 12
19:00 Stalker
December 13
14:00 Zero City
16:00 First on the Moon
Having penetrated the Balkans in the fourteenth century, conquered Constantinople in the fifteenth, and reached the gates of Vienna in the sixteenth, the Ottoman Empire long struck fear into European hearts.
I walk over rocks hot as iron under the September sun. I can make out a few lines in the distance, and a few cracked rocks, but apart from those, not a single tree, not one plant. I have walked until I reached this hill, in the trail of the letter that hurled me once again to my home town...
Our Cold Front from the Balkans exhibition focuses on different generations of artists and art groups from the Balkan region. Throughout the exhibition, we keep sharing detailed information about the artworks. Take a look at Mark Požlep’s “Stranger than Paradise” video installation. Also you can check our interview with the artist on our YouTube channel!
Tuesday - Friday 11.00 - 18.00
The museum is closed on Mondays,
Saturdays and Sundays.
On Wednesdays, the students can
visit the museum free of admission.
Full ticket: 25 TL
Discounted: 10 TL
Groups: 20 TL (10 people or more)
