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Earth

Earth

Zemlya

Alexander Dovzhenko


  • Country: Soviet Union
  • Year: 1930
  • Language: Silent
  •  
  • Runtime: 75 min.

Commissioned by the Soviet government to produce a propaganda film about the struggle for agricultural collectivization, Alexander Dovzhenko instead made this achingly beautiful paean to his rural Ukrainian homeland, creating in the process a cinema of landscape that uncovered the vibrant, coursing life within a seemingly inanimate world.

Cinematheque

screening times

    • Saturday November 20
    • 12:00:00 PM
    • Tiff Bell LightBox 3

Note: indicates Premium Screening.

official description

ARCHIVAL PRINT!

Commissioned by the Soviet government to produce a propaganda film about the struggle for agricultural collectivization, Alexander Dovzhenko instead made this achingly beautiful paean to his rural Ukrainian homeland, creating in the process a cinema of landscape that uncovered the vibrant, coursing life within a seemingly inanimate world. A poetic, almost mythic rumination on the cycles of death and rebirth, the primal bond between humanity and nature, and the everyday heroism of those who work the land, Earth tells an elementally simple tale of the battle between the old—represented by the devious, greedy landowning kulaks—and the new, in the person of the optimistic, fresh-faced peasant hero who brings modern farming methods (represented by a precious tractor) to the commune. Luminous, exultant and erotic, Earth is a joyous celebration of life, even in its passing.

Thanks to Marie-Pierre Lessard, Cinémathèque québécoise.

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