Russian Film Festival

Overview

Semi-useful fact: 'babooshka' is a widely but incorrectly used term for Russian Dolls. 'Babooshka' means 'grandma' in Russian and 'Kate Bush in a body suit' in English, and nothing else. The correct term for the hollow dolls of varying sizes that nest inside one another is 'matryoshka'.

Not unlike a matryoshka itself, this year's Russian Resurrection Film Festival comprises multiple layers of films in varying shapes and sizes, all put together in a compact little package. Highlights include the premiere of the blindingly colourful retro musical Hipsters, and the retrospective program which dips into Russia's rich history of cinema and pulls out treasures like the elaborate 1936 Circus (one of Stalin's favourite films) and the eccentric 1960's comedy Peculiarities of the National Hunt.

The opening night will feature special guest Nikolai Lebedev who directed Soundtrack of Passion (which is billed as Russia's 'very first erotic-thriller'), and following the screening there will be a cocktail reception at the Coachman. Unless you are Kate Bush or a babooshka or a matryoshka or some other kind of superhuman/Russian, we wish to remind anyone planning on joining in of Garrison Keillor's forewarning words: "Vodka is tasteless going down, but it is memorable coming up."




Image: Circus, 1936. Dir. Grigorii Aleksandrov