Established in 2009, London’s vibrant Maslenitsa Festival returns in February for a week of celebration and activities throughout the capital.
Maslenitsa – often loosely translated as ‘pancake week’ – is a well-loved tradition in Russia to mark the beginning of spring, and now it’s a popular annual fixture here too – perfect for chasing away the winter blues and to experience the best of Russian culture and heritage.
This year’s festival is a veritable feast for all the senses (and of course there’ll be plenty of opportunities to taste delicious blini pancakes).
This film screening is a part of the Maslenitsa Festival programme (for the full programme please visit www.maslenitsa.co.uk)
Queen of Spades
2016‧ Drama film/Thriller
Former opera diva Sophia Meyer will stop at nothing to triumph on the stage one last time. Andrey is a young tenor looking for fame when he falls into her clutches … Once upon a time, the great soprano Sophia Maier conquered the world with her voice, her beauty and the legend she carefully built around herself. Now only the legend remains – the diva herself hasn't performed for years, nor been seen in the glittering social circles she once dominated. But the woman who fascinated and thrilled the world for so long would like to crown her career with one more triumph. And she'll use every dirty trick she knows to achieve it.
Film Director: Pavel Lungin
Screening date: 25 February 2017
Screening time: 5pm
Film director Pavel Lungin studied mathematics and linguistics before changing direction towards scriptwriting and directing. Starting out primarily as a scriptwriter, he directed his first full-length film – Taxi Blues – in 1990, winning ‘Best Director’ prize at the Cannes film festival. Other highly successful films quickly followed, including Luna Park (1991, nominated at Cannes in 1992), Lifeline (1995), The Wedding (1999, which won special prize for ‘Best Ensemble Movie Cast’ at Cannes, 2000), Tycoon (2002), Roots (2005, winning the Grand Prize at the Kinotavr film festival), Dead Souls (TV, 2005), The Island (2006, taking six prizes at the Nika festival, six at the Golden Eagle festival, and a special award for Cinematography at the White Square festival), Tzar (2009, nominated at Cannes for the ‘Un Certain Regard’ award), The Conductor (2011, for which Vladas Bagdonas won best actor at Shanghai in 2012), The Homeland (TV, 2015) and The Queen of Spades (2016). Pavel Lungin has also worked as a producer on the films Cruelty, The Joke, Tzar, The Conductor, The Convoy, The Homeland and The Queen of Spades; and he makes documentary films for TV.
