Fall Films at Pravda Bar

In the fall of 2008, CEC ArtsLink teamed up with Pravda Bar to bring New Yorkers free Sunday evening screenings of independent films from our recent archives. Contemporary Russian and Central Asia cinema in fabulous SoHo!

Sundays, 8pm, Pravda Bar, 281 Lafayette Street (between Houston and Prince)

September 21
URSDON: The Territory of Loneliness, by Maria Kozlova, 20 min (documentary)

40 years ago there were more then 500 houses in the Caucasian village of Ursdon. Now there are only 3 left. The strong men live here...

MOSCOW, by Bakur Bakuradze 35 min (2007, feature)
Bakuradze’s work was shown earlier this year at the Anthology Film Archives.

A Kyrgyz family tries to make their way in Moscow, shifting between the desire to maintain their old way of life with the need to adapt to new circumstances. 

September 28
Aral, fishing in an invisible sea, by Saodat Ismailova (Uzbekistan), 52 min (2004, documentary). This poignant and elegiac film documents the life of the remaining fishermen in the Aral Sea- which has all but dried up in one of the worst environmental disasters caused by human activity.  The film won “Best Documentary” at 2004 Turin Film Festival, and was screened at Rotterdam, Vision du reel (Switzerland), and others.

Zulfiya, by Saodat Ismailova (Uzbekistan), 2003
The Aral Sea also serves as the setting for this short film depicting the arduous life of the nomads on the sea’s disappearing shores.   The film was screened at the International Film Festival of Trieste, Italy, The Archipelago Film Festival in Rome, and the Human Rights Festival in Bolognia. 

Saodat Ismailova graduated from the Tashkent State Art Institute video and cinema direction department in 2002.  Since then, she has completed five films, variously with the support of the Agakhan Foundation and Fabrica (of Benetton).  In 2005, she was artist in residence at DAAD in Germany, and a 2007 ArtsLink resident at the Athens Center for Film and Video at Ohio University through CEC ArtsLink.  Last year, her films were screened in New York at the Rubin Museum, among other venues.  She is currently working on a full-length feature film. 

October 5
Cruelty, by Marina Lubakova, 90 min (2007, feature)
Marina Lubakova made her debut in feature film (following her documentary work) with this brazen portrait of teenagerdom in today’s Russia.  The film premiered at the Moscow Festival of Premieres (where actress Renata Litvinova took home Best Actress for her role in the film), and has since garnered a cult following. Join us for the US premiere of this great story!!

October 12
Civil Status, by Alina Rudnitskaya, 29 min (2005, documentary)
Glimpse episodes in the lives of Saint Petersburg residents as they make the most personal of life’s moments official.

“Alina Rudnitskaya's Civil Status documents the day-to-day activities of the St. Petersburg's civil registry office. The director interviews the women who work there, and they discuss the various dramatic and humorous life situations they are privy to as part of their every workday.”
~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The film won Best Documentary Film at the 2006 Kinoblik Festival in Stuttgart, Germany; First Prize at the 2006 International Short Film Festival at Oberhausen; as well as other awards, and was screened at Rotterdam, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the Center for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, and is included in The Cinema Guild’s a short list of “Acclaimed and Award-Winning Documentaries for Russian & Eastern European Studies”.

15 Bis, by Maksim Kazarinov and Aleksandr Murugov, 15 min (documentary)

Banya, by Maksim Kazarinov and Aleksandr Murugov, 25 min (documentary)

October 19
The Great Soviet Eclipse, produced by Kabinet (St. Petersburg, Russia) and the Museum of Jurassic Technology (Culver City, CA); 90 minutes, (2008, documentary).

The final installment in a series known as Chain of Flowers, the film is about the thought and impact of Russian astronomer Nicholas Kozyrev (1908-1983) who, during imprisonment in a Russian Gulag, developed a controversial branch of astrophysics.

October 26
New Central Asian cinema, TBA

November 2
Sunless City, by Sergei Potemkin, (feature, full length)
Screened at Margaret Mead Festival

November 9
Tiny Katerina, by Ivan Golovnev,  24 min (2004, documentary)
Screened at Margaret Mead Festival.

Tiny Katerina is the youngest member of an indiginous Siberian family living a remote subsistence life. See the world through her eyes.

Liza, by Pavel Fattakhudinov, 39 min (2005, documentary)

Screened in early 2008 at CEC ArtsLink, this film is a tender portrayal of the adversities faced by a young girl with big dreams in a small Siberian village.