San Francisco Cinematheque received a grant in support of their three-program film series From the East: Post Soviet Legacies to be presented in the Fall of 2013. The PFW grant will help to enable each of the filmmakers to visit the US. Sergey Loznitza will present his film REVUE, a feature-length critical compendium of archival propaganda newsreels produced in the USSR in the 1950’s and ’60’s, documenting the lives of people from all sectors of the vast nation, depicting “hardship, deprivation and absurd rituals, but at the same time illuminated by the glorious shining of the communist illusion.” Loznitza, who is from Belarus released another film in 2005 entitled BLOCKADE about the 900 day “Siege of Leningrad.” Filmmaker Stephan Rusu from Moldova work is intimately related to examining processes of change which, occurred in post-socialist societies after 1989. His interests include mass-manipulation techniques, political engineering strategies; and various modes of colonization, national absorption and post-Soviet re-division of states and regions. He will present works from several projects, including Changing Climate. Andras Szirtes of Budapest, Hungary, known as the “dean of Hungarian experimentalist,” has created personal experimental films since the mid-1970’s. He will be at the San Francisco Cinematheque festival to present a retrospective of his important and neglected works which include his 16mm Diaries series (1979-2004) which document the impact of the communist system on the artist’s daily life.
