Movies

SYNOPSIS

A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position. As if the question was: what would you do in God’s place?

Aleksei German

Aleksei Yuryevich German was born in Leningrad in 1938, the son of writer Yuri Pavlovich German. He earned a degree in theatre direction. In 1968 with Aronov he made The Seventh Companion, a film that was banned. In 1969, the same fate befell Trial on the Road, inspired by a novel written by his father. In 1976, he directed Twenty Days Without War, based on the novel by Simonov, who saved the film from the censors. In 1984, German again turned to one of his father’s novels to make My Friend Ivan Lapshin, which was also banned. In the 1990s, German directed Khrustalyov, My Car!, presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. His last work, Hard to Be a God, based on a novel by the Strugatsky brothers, took fifteen years to make. Aleksei German died in February 2013, and the film was completed by Svetlana Karmalita and by their son Aleksei German Jr.

Filmography

2013       Trudno byt bogom / Hard to Be a God /

1998       Khrustalyov, mashinu! /Khrustalyov, My Car!

1985       Moy drug Ivan Lapshin / My Friend Ivan Lapshin

1977       Dvadtsat dney bez voyny / Twenty Days Without War

1971       Proverka na dorogakh / Trial on the Road

1968       Sedmoy sputnik / Sedmi putnik

Festivali

2014       Rome, Rotterdam, Sitges, Vienna

Alongside the scale of German's ambition and the casual, old-school mastery of his execution, every other new feature in the Rotterdam program looks like pretty small beer.

Neil Young, IndieWIRE