Russian cinema club invites you to the PREMIER OF THE YEAR! (FULL)

Russian cinema club invites you to the PREMIER OF THE YEAR!

6 March (Tuesday) at 7 pm
ELENA

(Russia, 109 min, 2011)

Directed by  Andrey Zvyagintsev

Starring        Nadezhda Markina

AND!

Please come to know more about new monthly 16 pages supplement Russia Beyond The Headlines (www.rbth.ru) now published inside SCMP. Copies of the first issue will be available at the event. RBTH Hong Kong bureau chief Mark Zavadskiy will make a short presentation about the project and will answer your questions.

rbth.ru

Russian news in English. All about Russia: politics, economics, international news, society, opinion, arts & living, photo of the day, blogs.

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PLOT

Elena and Vladimir are an older couple, they come from different backgrounds. Vladimir is a wealthy and cold man, Elena comes from a modest milieu and is a docile wife. They have met late in life and each one has children from previous marriages. Elena's son is unemployed, unable to support his own family and he is constantly asking Elena for money. Vladimir's daughter is a careless young woman who has a distant relationship with her father. A heart attack puts Vladimir in hospital, where he realizes that his remaining time is limited. A brief but somehow tender reunion with his daughter leads him to make an important decision: she will be the only heiress of his wealth. Back home he announces it to Elena. Her hopes to financially help her son suddenly vanish. The shy and submissive housewife then comes up with a plan to give her son and grandchildren a real chance in life. 

Written by Cannes Film Festival

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Жанр драма

Режиссёр    Андрей Звягинцев

В главных ролях    Надежда Маркина, Елена Лядова

Оператор    Михаил Кричман

«Еле́на» — российский фильм 2011 года, снятый режиссером Андреем Звягинцевым. Фильм участвовал в программе «Особый взгляд» Каннского кинофестиваля 2011 года.

Пожилой и обеспеченный предприниматель Владимир оформил брак со своей сиделкой Еленой после почти восьмилетней совместной жизни. Они встретились 10 лет назад, из них 2 года прожили в официальном браке. Когда они встретились, она работала медсестрой в больнице. У каждого из них есть дети от предыдущих браков: у Елены — безработный и ни к чему не стремящийся сын Сергей, сталкивающийся с трудностями при содержании своей растущей семьи, у Владимира — беззаботная и бессемейная дочь Катерина. После того, как Владимир попадает в больницу с инфарктом, он отказывает Елене в просьбе о финансовой помощи семье Сергея, необходимой для оплаты обучения старшего сына в семье Сергея — Александра, чтобы его не забрали в армию, и принимает решение: всё его состояние после смерти отойдёт Катерине, а вдова (Елена) получит пожизненную ренту…

В фильме на примере семейства Сергея и Катерины показана проблема потерянного поколения, которое ни к чему не стремится и почти ни в чём не видит смысла. Лейтмотивом картины выступаю рассуждения Катерины о безответственности, которые она делает, сидя в палате у кровати болеющего отца. Благодаря которым и проходит тонкая грань противоположности между Катериной и Сергеем со своим семейством.

Награды и номинации

• ·      Лучшая сценарная разработка (Сандэнс) (ещё до начала съёмок)
• ·      Специальный приз жюри конкурсной программы «Особый взгляд» (Канны-2011)
• ·      Гран-При Гентского международного кинофестиваля
• ·      Гран-при фестиваля в Дурбане
• ·      Надежда Маркина, исполнившая роль Елены, наряду с Кирстен Данст, Сесиль де Франс, Тильдой Суинтон и Шарлоттой Генсбур претендовала на премию European Film Awards в номинации «Лучшая актриса».
• ·      Лучший фильм 2011 года по версии национальной премии Гильдии киноведов и кинокритиков России «Белый слон».
• ·      10 номинаций на премию «Золотой орёл»: лучший фильм (победа), лучшая режиссёрская работа (Андрей Звягинцев; победа), лучшая операторская работа (Михаил Кричман; победа), лучшая женская роль (Надежда Маркина), лучшая женская роль второго плана (Елена Лядова; победа), лучший сценарий (Олег Негин, Андрей Звягинцев), лучшая работа художника-постановщика (Андрей Понкратов), лучшая музыка (Филип Гласс), лучший монтаж (Анна Масс) и лучшая работа звукорежиссёра (Андрей Дергачёв).

Admission is free, however please contact us in advance to reserve a seat (2598 8389 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            2598 8389      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or 2teacher@rlc.hk).

The screening will take place at the following address: Room 701, 7/F, Arion Commercial Centre, No. 2-12 Queen's Road West, Sheung Wan.

Hurry on to do good things ((c) Friedrich Haass)

The Great Lent which has just started for the Orthodox Christians (and we remember that Orthodoxy is still the main religion in Russia). The fasting time is not only 'strange food without delicious things'. Indeed, the idea is not in gastronomical problems and how not to die from hunder, it is first of all the matter of spiritual sense. It is time, when people should be kinder and more attentive to each other, to what happens in your own heart. Time to help others, time to do someone good. As one of the famous Russian saints used to say, 'the problem is not WHAT you eat, the main thing is not to eat PEOPLE'.

So if you want to become more Russian, together with us let's try to learn to be more helpful. During all fasting time we will inform you about different needs of different people who ask for help. If you would like to help and do some charity things, just ... just do it) Hurry on to do good things ((c) Friedrich Haass)

Good night!

Story of a picture: Christ in the Desert, Ivan Kramskoy

In 1872. Oil on canvas. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.

The desert from the picture gives the impression of  icy cold space with no life. In the face of Christ, especially in the eyes, full of intense thought, a certain aloofness, absence of reality of this world is read. He is sitting with his back to the horizon turning pink, he can only guess the sunrise. Morning of the Revival has come, but the sun has not risen ... 

In the picture there is no place to clear and joyful tones, as there is no place for light naive faith. His belief is acquired in agony of spirit, in opposition to the world and himrself.

Aesthetics of paintings is located in borders of the epoch.Created by Kramskoy, the image is not divine..Having the terrain shape, Christ embodies the idea of ​​the invisible world, revealing at the same time the image of God.

by Tanais.info

Pancake week, Forgiveness Sunday and the Great Lent

The last week was a week of Maslenitsa or Pancake week, you could learn about it in the post earlier. Each day of the week has its own name and traditions. Usually Russians visit each other during the whole week and cook and eat a lot of pancakes.
The pancake week's last day - Sunday - is so called Forgiveness Sunday. On this day there is a very kind tradition - we ask for pardon and forgive each other for all evil and wrong things we have done to each other. In such a way you 'become clean' from all your sins - when you receive an excuse and forgive those who did wrong to you.

In Russian we use to say the following
- Прости меня! - Forgive me 
- Бог простит, и я прощаю, и ты меня прости! - God forgives you and I will forgive, please forgive me too! 


Next day after the Forgiveness Sunday in Orthodoxy comes the Great Lent, the fasting time before the Easter which lasts 40 days and the Passion week.

Clean Week

The first week of Great Lent starting on Clean Monday, the first day of Great Lent. The name "Clean Week" refers to the spiritual cleansing each of the faithful is encouraged to undergo through fasting, prayer.

Throughout this week fasting is most strict. Those who have the strength are encouraged to fast completely, eating only on Wednesday and Friday evenings, after the Presanctified Liturgy. Those who are unable to keep such a strict fast are encouraged to eat only a little, and then onlyxerophagy (uncooked food) once a day. Meals are served on Saturday and Sunday, but these are fasting meals at which meat and dairy products are forbidden.

At Great Compline during the first four days of the Fast (Monday through Thursday) the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is divided into four parts and one part is chanted each night (for further information about the Great Canon, see Fifth Week, below).

The First Saturday is called "St. Theodore Saturday" in honor of St. Theodore the Recruit, a fourth century martyr. At the end of the Presanctified Liturgy on Friday (since, liturgically, the day begins at sunset) a special canon to St. Theodore, composed by St. John of Damascus, is chanted. 

The First Sunday of Great Lent is the Feast of Orthodoxy, which commemorates the restoration of the veneration of icons after the Iconoclastcontroversy, which is considered to be the triumph of the Church over the last of the great heresies which troubled her (all later heresies being simply a rehashing of earlier ones).

(c) wikipedia

Russian winter

via Bigpicture.ru


winter games in Kolomenskoe, Moscow

sunrise, the road between Krasnoyarsk and Mongolia, - 27 C

Book-cafe, 20 March (Tuesday) at 7pm – Leo Tolstoy, ‘The Kreutzer Sonata’.

The Russian Language Center invites you to the 'book-cafe' to discuss the novels or poems written by famous Russian writers. We speak and think together. That's why we propose you to get prepared to the meeting and to read a book in advance in ANY language you want. The idea is to get acquainted with the book 'from the inside'.

20 March (Tuesday) at 7pm  –  Leo Tolstoy, ‘The Kreutzer Sonata’. 

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The Kreutzer Sonata (Russian: Крейцерова соната, Kreitzerova Sonata) is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1889 and promptly censored by the Russian authorities. The work is an argument for the ideal of sexual abstinence and an in-depth first-person description of jealous rage. The main character, Pozdnyshev, relates the events leading up to his killing his wife; in his analysis, the root cause for the deed were the "animal excesses" and "swinish connection" governing the relation between the sexes.

The Kreutzer Sonata (Russian) http://ilibrary.ru/text/1009/index.html

The Kreutzer Sonata (English) Book On-line or download  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/689 or http://www.ccel.org/t/tolstoy/kreutzer/

Admission is free, however please write to us (2teacher@rlc.hk) or call us (2598 8389) to book a seat.

VENUE: Unit 701, 7/F, Arion Commercial Building, No. 2-12, Queen's Road West, Sheung Wan,Hong Kong

Pancake week cinema club

Soon comes Russian Pancake week or Maslenitsa, as Russians call it. It is amazing time when we eat lots of pancakes and have fun. 

It is also the last week before the Great Lent. The last day of this week is Forgiveness Sunday, the day when Russians traditionally forgive each other for the wrongdoings of the previous year.

These and other traditions of old Russia are brilliantly portrayed in a famous Russian film The Barber of Siberia which the Russian Cinema Club will be screening on the 21st of February (Tuesday) at 7pm. The screening will take place at the following address:Room 701, 7/F, Arion Commercial Centre, No. 2-12 Queen's Road West, Sheung Wan.

Admission is free, however please contact us in advance to reserve a seat (2598 8389 or 2teacher@rlc.hk).

The Barber of Siberia

(Сибирский цирюльник, Sibirskij Tsirjulnik) 1999 Production: Russia, 180 min.
Genre: Melodrama.

Jane Callahan, a beautiful American, writes to her son, a cadet at a famous military academy, but who is he? Her memories take us back 20 years to when she arrived in Russia to assist Douglas McCracken, an obsessive engineer who needs the Grand Duke's patronage to sponsor his invention, a massive machine to harvest the forests. On her travels, she meets two men who will change her life forever

Cast: Julia Ormond, Oleg Menshikov, Richard Harris, Aleksey Petrenko, Vladimir Iljin, Marina Neelova, Anna Mikhalkova, Marat Basharov, Daniel Olbrykhsky, Avangard Leontjev, Nikita Mikhalkov, Evgeny Steblov, Leonid
Kuravlev. Director: Nikita Mikhalkov 
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СИБИРСКИЙ ЦИРЮЛЬНИК 
(The Barber of Siberia) 1999

Режиссер: Никита Михалков
В ролях: Олег Меньшиков, Джулия Ормонд, Алексей Петренко, Владимир Ильин, Ричард Харрис, Анна Михалкова, Марат Башаров, Никита Михалков, Леонид Куравлев, Даниэль Ольбрыхский, Авангард Леонтьев
Жанр: Драма

Действие киноэпопеи "Сибирский цирюльник" происходит в эпоху императора Александра III, редкую для России, да и Европы, эпоху без революций, войн и потрясений. "Сибирский цирюльник" - фильм для зрителей, которым жить в XXI веке. Он не о прошлом, а о Вечном для каждого из зрителей: о Жизни и Смерти, о Любви и Вере в торжество Добра. В этом смысле "Сибирский цирюльник" - воспоминание о грядущем.