Stalker

Pushkin House and Klassiki are delighted to present a film programme inspired by the pioneering science fiction of the Strugatsky Brothers: After Utopia: the Strugatsky Brothers on Film.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s final Soviet feature is a metaphys­ical journey through an enigmatic postapocalyptic landscape, and a rarefied cinematic experience like no other. A hired guide – the Stalker – leads a writer and a professor into the heart of the Zone, the restricted site of a long-ago disaster, where the three men eventually zero in on the Room, a place rumored to fulfill one’s most deeply held desires. Adapting a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Tarkovsky created an immersive world with a wealth of material detail and a sense of organic atmosphere. A religious allegory, a reflection of contemporaneous political anxieties, and a meditation on film itself – Stalker envelops the viewer by opening up a multitude of possible meanings.

Running from 6-13 November, After Utopia will feature four screenings as well as a live discussion at Pushkin House, exploring how some of the most renowned Soviet and Russian filmmakers – including Andrei Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Sokurov, and Aleksei German – drew on the Strugatskys as they explored the slow collapse of twentieth-century utopia.

Cast:
Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko

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Part of After Utopia: The Strugatsky Brothers on Film Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR, 1979, 161m.