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UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)

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SERS0047 Contemporary Russian Cinema

UCL Credits: 15

Total Learning Hours: 150

ECTS: 7.5

Level: Advanced

 

Full Year

Module Coordinator: Dr Rachel Morley

Taught By: Dr Rachel Morley

To find out more about this module, please contact the Module Coordinator.

Weekly Contact Hours: 3.0 (1 hour lecture and 2 hour film screening per week)
Prerequisites: None. Knowledge of Russian is not required for this module: all the films will be shown in subtitled versions. 
Compulsory Module for: N/A

Summative Assessment

2 Hour Examination (100%)

Formative Assessment

Two essays of c.1500 words, one in each term

Module Outline

Major changes have affected Russian cinema since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in such areas as production, distribution, ideology and taste. This module examines the development of post-Soviet cinema, exploring 16 key films made between 1991 and the present. Considering the films in the dual framework of their social and cinematic contexts, the module explores such issues as: the lives of the new rich and of young people in post-Soviet society; the changed roles of men and women; the effect of social and ideological change on conditions in the Russian countryside; and the legacy of post-Soviet conflicts. It also examines post-Soviet treatments of Soviet history, in particular the representation of the perennial subjects of the Stalinist 1930s, the Second World War and the end of the Soviet project. In its exploration of cinematic developments this module considers, among other topics, the flourishing of the ‘Real Russian Cinema’ (nastoiashchoe russkoe kino) during the early 2000s; the development of post-Soviet auteur cinema; the phenomenon of the so-called ‘New Quiet Ones’ (novye tikhie); the emerging impulse towards increasing social engagement; young actors and new stars; and the arrival of new male and female filmmakers, their exploration of genre, form and content and their search to find new formulae for both arthouse and popular cinema.

Among the directors whose films will be considered on this module are Aleksei Balabanov, Pavel Chukhrai, Boris Khlebnikov, Bakhtier Khudoinazarov, Sergei Livnev, Sergei Loban, Petr Lutsik, Angelina Nikonova, Aleksei Popogrebskii, Aleksandr Rogozhkin, Vasilii Sigarev, Avdot´ia Smirnova, Aleksandr Sokurov, Valerii Todorovskii, Ivan Vyrypaev and Andrei Zviagintsev.

Indicative Texts

  • Beumers, Birgit (ed.), Russia on Reels: The Russian Idea in Post-Soviet Cinema, KINO, the Russian Cinema Series, London: I. B. Tauris, 1999
  • Condee, Nancy, The Imperial Trace. Recent Russian Cinema, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009
  • Faraday, George, Revolt of the Filmmakers: The Struggle for Artistic Autonomy and the Fall of the Soviet Film Industry, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000
  • Goscilo, Helena and Hashamova, Yana, Cinepaternity: Fathers and Sons in Soviet and Post-Soviet Film, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010
  • Lawton, Anna, Imaging Russia 2000: Film and Facts, Washington, DC: New Academia, 2004

  • Norris, Stephen M., Blockbuster History in the New Russia: Movies, Memory and Patriotism, Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 2012

     

AFFILIATES

Affiliates

Course Code

Assessment

 ECTS

Full Year AffiliatesRegister for SERS0047As Above 7.5
Affiliates here for Term 1 onlyRegister for SERS00812,500 word essay 3.75
Affiliates here for Terms 2 and 3 onlyRegister for SERS01002,500 word essay 3.75

Please note: This outline is accurate at the time of publication. Minor amendments may be made prior to the start of the academic year.