Tarkovsky Revisited

Eastern European cinema has perhaps only one star: Andrei Tarkovsky, the Russian genius. Mentioned in the same breath as Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson and Akira Kurosawa, analyzed using Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze: The eternal seeker of "home" found it amid the global elite of cinema and philosophy. Tarkovsky is a cult figure, his oeuvre stands for depth, duration, transcendence, for the dissident nature of film art vis-à-vis a brutalized world. The Tarkovsky retrospective at the Arsenal also has cult status. In 2022, the first year of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, it was suspended. The temporary suspension of Russian culture, which has lost its innocence, was - and is - more than just a symbolic gesture. It marks a politically and historically justified, as well as morally imperative, rethink of how to deal with untouched canons and untouchable heroes, as well as with what is described as the Russian soul or spirit. Last but not least, it is precisely famous representatives of this culture, Tarkovsky's comrades-in-arms on IVANOVO DETSTVO and ANDREI RUBLEV, for example, who are supporting or fueling this war and are therefore at the top of the sanctions lists: Andrei Konchalovsky, a co-writer, supporting actor and close friend of the star director himself from their student years, is firmly loyal to Putin and his regime (as is his even more famous half-brother, 'cultural tsar' Nikita Mikhalkov); Nikolai Burlyayev, who played Ivan and the young bell-maker's son Boriska, has mutated into a civil servant and become a front-line fighter on the patriotic and chauvinist "cultural front of Russia." Ukrainian Dreams invites audiences and particularly those who want to make cross-connections to question the hegemony of Russian culture with introductions and conversations. (Barbara Wurm)

The program is curated by Barbara Wurm, is part of Arsenal 60 ff. and was made possible thanks to a grant from the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF).

Free admission for Ukrainian refugees.
Безкоштовний в’їзд для біженців з України.