Dutch festival screens 100 years of Russian film

Film fans will be spoilt for choice with a festival in Amsterdam that spans 100 years of Russian cinema as part of the bilateral year of culture between Russia and the Netherlands. Ruskino Film Festival will be screening a wide range of films from restored versions of classics such as Battleship Potemkin (1925) to genre films such as White Sun of the Desert (1970), a “red western”.

According to the organisers, the festival will also show a selection of movie gems that have “disappeared off the radar for years”. They include Marlen Khutsiyev’s July Rain (1966), a film evocative of the work of Italian director Michelangelo Antionioni; A Life for a Life (1916) by Yevgeni Bauer; and House on Trubnaya Street (1928) by Boris Barnet. The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks starring Barnet will also be screened with a new score by 15 Dutch composers from the Multimedia Music Institute.

Also scheduled is a retrospective of films by director Alexei Balabanov who died this year. Opening the retrospective will be Brother (1997), an exploration of Russian capitalism in the Nineties through the life of a disillusioned solider turned hitman. Ruskino runs at EYE Film Institute Netherlands until 19 December.