Brief Encounters

  • March 5, 2016 / 19:00
  • March 11, 2016 / 18:00

Director: Kira Muratova
Cast: Vladimir Vysotskii, Kira Muratova, Nina Ruslanova, Elena Bazilskaya, Aleksei Glazyrin
Soviet Union, 1968, 96’, black & white
Russian with Turkish subtitles

For her astonishing debut feature, Kira Muratova cast herself as Valentina, the head of a regional housing office in a backwater Soviet-era town. For some time, Valentina has been carrying on an affair with Maxim, a free-spirited geologist who occasionally passes through town on prospecting missions. She hires a country girl, Nadya, as a housemaid, not knowing she had a relationship with Maxim during one trip. The lives, memories, and desires of these characters are woven together through Muratova's subtle and intricate montage, showing through flashbacks each woman's idealization of Maxim - played by Vladimir Vysotsky, a performer of anthemic underground songs hailed then as the "Russian Bob Dylan." Banned and shelved til glasnost, Brief Encounters rankled the censors with its freewheeling morals and tough look at everyday Soviet life. Muratova unflinchingly records the dismal housing conditions, lack of public facilities, and growing desperation of the young workers who have abandoned the countryside to try their luck in the city.

Brief Encounters

Brief Encounters

Passions

Passions

The Asthenic Syndrome

The Asthenic Syndrome

The Tuner

The Tuner

Three Stories

Three Stories

Chekhov's Motifs

Chekhov's Motifs

Good News from the Skies

Good News from the Skies

Inspired by the exhibition And Now the Good News, which focusing on the relationship between mass media and art, we prepared horoscope readings based on the chapters of the exhibition. Using the popular astrological language inspired by the effects of the movements of celestial bodies on people, these readings with references to the works in the exhibition make fictional future predictions inspired by the horoscope columns that we read in the newspapers with the desire to receive good news about our day. 

Seaside Leisure

Seaside Leisure

Istanbul’s Seaside Leisure: Nostalgia from Sea Baths to Beaches exhibition brought together photographs, magazines, comics, objects, and books from various private and institutional collections, and told a nostalgic story while also addressing the change and socialization of the norms of how Istanbulites used their free time. Istanbul’s Seaside Leisure was a documentary testament of the radical transformations in the Republic’s lifestyle. 

Is mutual understanding possible? <br> Berlinde De Bruyckere

Is mutual understanding possible?
Berlinde De Bruyckere

Pera Museum, in collaboration with Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), is one of the main venues for this year’s 15th Istanbul Biennial from 16 September to 12 November 2017.  Through the biennial, we will be sharing detailed information about the artists and the artworks.