Mother and Son
This end-of-year cycle invites audiences to discover select 35mm prints from in our collection, creating dynamic contrasts in eras, styles, and cultures from one film to the next.
A young man looks after his dying mother in a small and isolated house in the Russian countryside. He lays her on a bench, reads to her, takes her for walks, and carries her in his arms...
Alexander Sokurov
Born in 1951 in Podorvikha, Alexander Sokurov first studied history before joining Moscow’s prestigious film school, VGIK, where he was a student of Andrei Tarkovsky. Early in his career, Sokurov focused on documentary filmmaking, though much of his work faced censorship by Soviet authorities. In 1996, he released Mother and Son, making hiw way into global cinema with his signature elements: mysticism, visual distortions, and intricate use of light. A lover of visual experimentation, he created Russian Ark in 2002, a 96-minute single-take shot filmed in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. His enduring obsession remains the dark figures of political power: Moloch (1999) centers on Hitler, Taurus (2001) on Lenin, and The Sun (2005) on Hirohito. In 2022, he orchestrated a meeting between Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Churchill in purgatory in his film Fairytale.
