Throughout May, Pushkin House screens a series of classic war films from or about Russia on Sunday afternoons, running in parallel with our Spring exhibition, ‘James Hill: Russian Veterans’, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. As elsewhere in Europe, the genre changed in its tone and approach through the decades that followed.
The Ascent Восхождение
1977, directed by Larisa Shepitko, after Vasil Bykov's novel Sotnikov. 111 minutes. In Russian with English subtitles.
Searching for food and separated from their regiment, two partisans, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostiukhin), encounter a patrol of Nazi soldiers, with devastating consequences. Through bleak snowy forest and Belarussian village, we follow their story of betrayal, heroism and sacrifice.
The Ascent became an international sensation when it was released, winning the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival, and its influence is clearly seen, both in the subsequent Come and See, by her widower Elem Klimov, and in Saving Private Ryan. It was Larisa Shepitko’s crowning achievement before her untimely death in 1979.
Free screening: no booking required; seats are limited and are provided on a first-come first-serve basis.
RETHINKING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, SUNDAY SERIES
RETHINKING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, SUNDAY SERIES
10th May: The Dawns Here are Quiet (1972)
17th May: The Fall of Berlin (1950)
24th May: The Demi-Paradise (1943)
31st May: The Ascent (1977)