Sergei Eisenstein, October (1927–1928)

Described by the director as “the first embryonic step towards a totally new form of film expression”, October was and remains a film of multiple challenges. It is the last installment of Eisenstein’s historical-revolutionary film epic, which began with the films Strike (1924) and Battleship Potemkin (1925). After the international success of Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein was commissioned to create a film celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. The director used the occasion to experiment with new ways of editing, which he conceived as intellectual montage. The experimenting also aimed to construct a new authoritative account of recent history by presenting a dramatic and dramatized chronicle of the events leading up to and during the October Revolution. While his version of history was ultimately rejected by the commissioning authorities and the film underwent multiple reediting, it remains an important milestone in film history as well as an early lesson in cinematic memory politics.

This screening is the second event in THE MISSING SIEGE film series that is part of THE TRACES OF REVOLUTIONS program series. In the framework of the one-year program series WHAT’S LEFT, which aims to revisit the complex socialist ideological and visual legacy in the year marked by the centennial of the Bolshevik Revolution.

The screening is introduced by Dr. Oksana Sarkisova (Blinken OSA).

Free admission.
Limited seats are available on a first come first served basis.
The films will be screened in Russian with English subtitles. The program is in English.

In the framework of the “The Traces of the Revolution” program series that is part of the one-year program series “What's Left?”.