Film Screening: Director Marlen Khutsiev presents 'JULY RAIN' (Iulskii dozhd', 1966)

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• MARLEN KHUTSIEV, GUILD OF FILM DIRECTORS (MOSCOW)
• Saturday 10 May 2014, 20:00-22:30
• Winstanley Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Susan Larsen.

Filmmaker Marlen Khutsiev will introduce and discuss his masterpiece ‘JULY RAIN ’(Iulskii dozhd’, 1966, 109 minutes). Screened in Russian with English subtitles. Filmed in glorious widescreen black and white, this film offers a portrait of Moscow life in the 1960s that is at once lyrical and profoundly disaffected. In film scholar Richard Pena’s words: ‘Like the French and other New Waves of the time, the new Soviet cinema of the ‘60s often featured a bold mixture of documentary and fiction, making each film an invaluable record of its moment. A kind of Soviet Masculin Fminine, ‘July Rain’ is an engaging portrait of ‘60s Moscow youth-the first generation to have grown up far from the shadows of war and Stalinist repression. Lena (Yevgeniya Uralova) and Volodya (Aleksandr Belyavsky) are a young couple on the verge of marriage when Lena decides that her fiance is not the man she thought he was. The break-up causes her to reflect on her life and to wonder about the kind of world she and other members of her generation are set to inherit. Then, during a cooling rain, she meets Zhenya… Endowed with a loose, spontaneous feeling, July Rain is full of small but telling incidents, as well as surprising observations of life in Moscow. The well-loved soundtrack features the work of Yuri Vizbor (who also plays one of the major roles) and Bulat Okudjava.’

The screening is free and open to the public.

Marlen Martynovich Khutsiev was born in Tbilisi in 1925, began his filmmaking career in Odessa and has lived in the same Moscow apartment for the last 26 years. His early work was shaped by Soviet filmmakers’ discovery of Italian neorealism in the 1950s; his great 1960s films have more in common with the work of Antonioni and Godard. Frequently subject to politically motivated attacks by Soviet authorities, his films are few in number, but each an aesthetic and historical landmark. He recently retired from his post as Head of the Directing Faculty at the Russian State Institute of Cinematography. At age 88 he is still active as a filmmaker and president of the Russian Federation’s Guild of Film Directors. He is also a lively raconteur with many stories to tell about his own films, as well as his work with filmmakers Ihor Savchenko, Sergei Parajanov, Andrei Tarkovskii and others.

For information about other events during Marlen Khutsiev’s visit, please click here

This talk is part of the Slavonic Film and Media Studies series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Chris Davis' list
• Featured talks
• Guy Emerson's list
• MARLEN KHUTSIEV IN CAMBRIDGE AND LONDON
• Slavonic Film and Media Studies
• Winstanley Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge
• custom

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.