Pitt and Pittsburgh Filmmakers to Host 8th Annual Russian Film Symposium May 1-6

PITTSBURGH-The University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers will host the 8th Annual Russian Film Symposium from May 1 to 6 at Pitt's Oakland campus and Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Ave. The symposium, titled White Russian-Black Russian: Race and Ethnicity in Russian Cinema, will address the questions: What is race? What is ethnicity? How was the line between race and ethnicity drawn differently under socialism? What are the consequences for present-day Russia?

For the first time, the symposium will feature a screening with live, original music performed by the avant-garde musical ensemble Antithesis. The group, from Pittsburgh's High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, will accompany Vsevolod Pudovkin's 1928 silent film Heir of Ghengis Khan during a 2 p.m. May 2 screening in Pitt's Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Schenley Drive, Oakland. The remainder of the campus screenings will occur in Room 208-B in the Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave. Also featured at this year's symposium will be a recently rediscovered film-never before screened publicly in the United States-Mikhail Dubson's The Border (1935).

The symposium will bring together some of the most well-recognized scholars and critics currently working in Russian film, including Oleg Aronson, senior research assistant at the Russian State Humanities University in Moscow; Peter Bagrov, editorial board member of Cinema Notes and Séance; and Dilyara Tasbulatova (Best Film Journalist in Russia, 2002), film critic for the weekly news magazine Sources.

Issues of race and ethnicity in historical and current Russian cinema spanning 80 years-from Stalin to Brezhnev to Putin-will be explored; scheduled discussion sessions will provide a forum for further debate. With the recent explosion of ethnic conflict in Russia, the symposium's theme has particular relevance to a post-communist society. Given the massive geographical terrain of Russia, "other" can be defined in many ways, including the more than 100 ethnicities, from Jews and Balts to Ukrainians, Chechens, Kyrgyz, as well as the Roma.

The 7:30 p.m. screenings at Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Melwood Screening Room from May 3 to 6, respectively, include: Vladimir Korsh-Sablin's film of Jewish resettlement, Seekers of Happiness (1936); Grigorii Aleksandrov's classic Stalinist musical, Circus (1936); Aleksei Balabanov's recent box office hit, Dead Man's Bluff (2005); and Larisa Sadilova's haunting drama, Needing a Nanny (2005). Leading film scholars will introduce all films. Admission to each evening film is $5. All Pittsburgh Filmmakers films will have English subtitles.

The 10 a.m. screenings in Room 208-B of the Cathedral of Learning from May 1 to May 5, respectively, include: Aleksandr Zarkhi's and Iosif Kheifits' My Motherland (1933); Edmond Keosaian's Civil War saga, The Elusive Avengers (1966); Aleksandr Mitta's black-face film, Tale of How Tsar Peter Married off His Negro (1976); Mikhail Dubson's recently discovered The Border (1935); and Nikita Mikhalkov's Mongolian drama, Close to Eden (1991).

The 2 p.m. screenings in Room 208-B of the Cathedral of Learning on May 2, 4, and 5 respectively, include: Emil Lotianu's The Gypsy Camp Rolls into the Sky (1976); Aleksandr Askol'dov's controversial classic, Commissar (1967, released 1987); and Pavel Lungin's Jewish family comedy, Roots (2005). All screenings on the Pitt campus are free and open to the public. All films, with the exception of My Motherland, Tale of How Tsar Peter Married off His Negro, and The Border, will have English subtitles. Film specialists will present introductions for each film, and discussion sessions will be held after every screening.

The symposium is supported by the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, and the

A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation. For more information and a complete schedule, visit the symposium's Web site, www.rusfilm.pitt.edu/2006, or contact Julie Draskoczy, 412-521-1327 or jsd14@pitt.edu.

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4/17/06/tmw