Davis Center: Film Screening of "Aelita"

Date: 

Wednesday, May 23, 2018, 12:25pm

Location: 

CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium, S010, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA
Movie Poster

The Marxist struggle reaches outer space in this fanciful Russian science fiction film from the silent period. Los (Nikolai Tsereteli) is an engineer who dreams of traveling to other worlds and imagines that a beautiful woman named Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva) lives on the planet Mars. Frustrated with the petty political conflicts that are a big part of life on Earth, Los builds a spaceship and travels to Mars, where he discovers that the lovely Aelita really does exist and is Queen of the Planet. However, the realities of political struggle do not escape him; it seems that the Martian proletariat are attempting to rise up and take power just as the Russian rank and file did, and Los once again finds himself standing between the ruling leadership and the workers attempting to take control of their own lives. (Allmovie.com)

Directed by Yakov Protazanov (1924). 113 minutes. Silent film with Russian-language intertitles, with English translation. 

Free admission with registration. Please follow the link below to be added to the registration list

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Sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

For more information, please call 617-495-4037.