Письма мёртвого человека (Letters from a Dead Man) 1986 PG

When
3.30pm, Sat 10 Mar 2018 (87 mins)
Where
Gallery of Modern Art & Cinema A
About
Letters from a Dead Man will screen from an imported 35mm film print.
A nuclear attack of tremendous proportions has devastated a city, which now resides under martial law. A professor hides out in the basement of a museum, sheltering from both the police and the fallout above ground. In his faltering refuge, he fruitlessly composes mental letters to his missing son and tries to find a path to hope for the children sharing the museum shelter.
Letters from a Dead Man offers a rare insight into the Soviet mindset during the Cold War – a counterpoint to the many American nuclear films that present the USSR as a faceless purveyor of destruction. It is also a brilliantly inventive sci-fi dystopia, crafting a brooding and vivid world wrought by nuclear calamity. Director Konstantin Lopushansky was an assistant to Andrei Tarkovsky on the set of Stalker 1979, and he brings a similar level of atmospheric control here through his stunningly rendered, tinted monochrome aesthetic.
Projected from an imported 35mm film print, this will be a rare theatrical screening of a key work of Soviet science fiction cinema.
Film Details
- Director: Konstantin Lopushansky
- Script: Konstantin Lopushansky, Vyacheslav Rybakov, Boris Strugatsky
- Cinematographer: Nikolai Pokoptsev
- Editor: t. Poulinoi
- Production Company: Lenfilm Studio
- Print Source: British Film Institute
- Rights: Gosfilmofond
- Screening Format: 35mm
- Year: 1986
- Runtime: 87 minutes
- Country: Soviet Union
- Languages: Russian, (with English subtitles)
- Sound: Mono
- Colour: Black & White, Colour, Tinted