Evgeny Granilshchikov’s debut feature film pursues the exploration of the social and political landscape of contemporary Russia started in his short video works and drawings about a decade ago. Lives and careers of his characters develop against a backdrop of current political affairs. Filmed over two years in Saint Petersburg and Paris, The Last Song starts with a conservative turn in Russian society after the presidential elections of 2012 and ends in the present day. This event is part of our current exhibition - On The Eve, by Victoria Lomasko. Victoria Lomasko's book ‘Other Russias’ on the 2018 Pushkin House Russian Book Prize shortlist.
Presented by Ben Lewis, art critic and film maker.
This is the Last Song of the Evening
Director: Evgeny Granilshchikov. Russia, 2018
Cast: Philipp Samsonov, Evgeny Granilshchikov, Nina Karlsson
60 min
Presented in Russian with English subtitles.
Evgeny Granilshchikov (b.1985) is an artist and independent filmmaker. He studied literature and animation at the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia in Moscow and is a key figure in the new critical generation of young Muscovite artists. While film is central to his practice, he creates elaborate continuous works using drawings, photography and collages. Granilshchikov investigates the power of the social over the individual and the possibilities for political consciousness. In 2013 he was awarded the Kandinsky Prize for his film Positions. His shows include “Political Populism” at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2015) and the 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015).
Ben Lewis is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, author and art critic, whose films have been shown by the BBC, Channel 4, Arte, PBS, Al-Jazeera, ABC-Australia and other major broadcasters around the world. Over the years he has won various awards including a Peabody, Grierson, US National Headliner and German Grimme Prize, and his films have been shown in exhibitions in public museums in Britain and Germany. Ben’s book ‘Hammer and Tickle’, a history of humour under Communism was published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson in Britain in 2008 and in America, Brazil, Poland, Italy, among other countries. His first monograph, ’David Hepher: Grain of Concrete’, was published lsat year in London. His articles has been published in Die Welt, Prospect Magazine, Sunday Telegraph, The Observer, Financial Times, Liberation, etc.
