Opening at NY’s Cinema Village on March 11th and the Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles on March 18th, the documentary “The Desert of Forbidden Art” is the definitive treatment of the clash between the artist and the Stalinist system and makes a perfect companion piece to Chris Marker’s “The Last Bolshevik“, which described the plight of film directors such as Alexander Medvedkin, who sought to affirm his artistic integrity in a period of bureaucratic conformity enforced by the secret police.
“The Desert of Forbidden Art” is directed by Amanda Pope, a UCLA film professor who made “Faces of Change” about reformers in the former Soviet Union, and Tchavdar Georgiev, a Russian now working in the U.S. It tells the story of Igor Savitsky, a young painter who was born to an aristocratic family in 1915. When they followed their class instincts and moved to the West, Savitsky stayed behind and enrolled at the Moscow Art Institute. In 1943, the institute was relocated to remote Uzbekistan to escape the Nazi onslaught. The Central Asian culture fascinated Savitsky in the same way that Polynesia fascinated Gauguin. After falling in love with the people and their culture (to the extent of converting to Islam), Savitsky returned to the town of Nukus in 1950 with the intention of preserving folk art, including traditional costumes. Using some of the most amazing archival footage from the Soviet era you have ever seen, we see young Uzbeki females being forced to abandon their customs, including their beautiful clothing, and becoming a forcibly assimilated Soviet Citizen. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/the-desert-of-forbidden-art/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
