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Sebastiane: A Work in Progress (c.1975): newly remastered from 16mm film elements held by the BFI National Archive, this sadly incomplete early black and white work-print of Sebastiane differs significantly from the finished film. This previously unseen alternate edit – assembled in a different order, featuring a different soundtrack – was never subtitled or released.Read More »
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Filmed entirely in vulgar Latin, this experimental film recounts the life of Sebastiane, a puritanical but beautiful Christian soldier in the Roman Imperial troops who is martyred when he refuses the homosexual advances of his pagan captain. When this film was released, it was the only English-made film to have required English subtitles, and it is an early film by the noted experimental and outspokenly homosexual director Derek Jarman, who died in 1994.Read More »
– Sokurov directed and filmed Mozart’s Requiem for the Rossica Choir in the wonderful hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Preceded by his student film, inspired by La Traviata.
The first night of a performance of Mozart’s Requiem staged by Alexander Sokurov, with the Rossica choir from St. Petersburg, led by Valentina Kopylova-Pantchenko, took place in the small hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic at the end of the winter of 2003. The choir holds a special place in this presentation of the Requiem – it is the main actor and plays the main role. The director was looking to give a new resonance to classical music in both an aesthetic as well as a musical context. On stage, the action takes place in a clear, simple, dynamic and beautiful way, within the space of a magnificent hall. The performance was a surprising revelation even for music-lovers.Read More »
Adam’s Passion is the moving first collaboration between two “masters of slow motion who harmonize perfectly with each other” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In the spectacular setting of a former submarine factory, American director and universal artist Robert Wilson creates a poetic visual world in which the mystical musical language of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt can cast its meditative spell. Three of Pärt’s major works – Adam’s Lament, Tabula rasa, and Miserere, as well as Sequentia, a new work composed especially for this production – are brought together here using light, space, and movement to create a tightly-woven Gesamtkunstwerk in which the artistic visions of these two great artists mirror each other.Read More »