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Larisa 1980

Larisa will screen from an imported 35mm print.

A moving tribute to Larisa Shepitko made by her grieving husband Elem Klimov in the aftermath of her death. Composed of photographs from throughout her life, as well as excerpts from her films, it is an insightful look into the artistic philosophy of Shepitko and the tender relationship between these two filmmakers.

Farewell 1983

Farewell will screen from an archival 35mm print.

In 1979, Larisa Shepitko and four crew members were killed in a car accident while scouting locations for the film adaptation of Valentin Rasputin’s novel ‘Farewell to Matyora’. A week later, her husband – the filmmaker Elem Klimov – was on set to complete the film in her stead. The result is this haunting portrait of a community whose longstanding village is on the precipice of ruin as the construction of a new dam threatens to inundate them with flooding. It is a film imbued with a sense of dread and helplessness against an unjust system, yet it is also a powerful exploration of community and connection to homeland.

“We have to keep in mind that the original thoughts and ideas about the making of ‘Farewell to Matyora’ belonged to Larisa and her friends. […] You cannot put a concept for a film down on paper, or put the original design into a simple drawing. It's not to be found in a screenplay either. So that's why – after their deaths – all this vanished with them.” – Elem Klimov in 1986, on the making of Farewell