Andrei Tarkovsky

The debut feature from the great Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood is an evocative, poetic journey through the shadows and shards of one boy’s war-torn youth. Moving back and forth between the traumatic realities of WWII and the serene moments of family life before the conflict began, Tarkovsky’s film remains one of the most jarring and unforgettable depictions of the impact of violence on children in wartime.

During World War II, 12-year old Ivan works as a spy on the eastern front. The small Ivan can cross the German lines unnoticed to collect information…

The award-winning director Andrei Tarkovsky the son of a famous Russian poet, was born in 1935 and grew up in and around Moscow during the Second World War. This non-linear autobiographical film is considered by many Russian-speakers to be his best film and is his most personal meditation on time, history and the Russian countryside. In a series of episodes and images, he captures the mood and feeling of the period just before, during and after the war. Lyrical reminiscences of his mother and of his father's poetry figure large in the film, along with extraordinary images of nature. Combining black-and-white and color work, with some unusual documentary footage, this highly regarded movie is structured with the logic of a dream.

On a space station orbiting the ocean-covered planet Solaris, cosmonaut Chris Kelvin arrives to investigate a series of mysterious and bizarre ocurrences among the crew. What he discovers are supernatural phenomena that cause repressed and haunting memories to take on physical form, including that of Kelvin's late wife. Through her, Kelvin attempts to communicate with the forces responsible which appear to be emanating from the mysterious planet itself. Director Andrei Tarkovsky transcends the normal conventions of the science fiction genre resulting in a moving and unsettling vision of memory and humanity, which has often been compared to Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'.

Ground control has been receiving strange transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness. In Solaris, legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky creates a brilliantly original science fiction epic that challenges our preconceived notions of love, truth, and humanity itself.

'Mirror' is the celebrated Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's most autobiographical work in which he reflects upon his own childhood and the destiny of the Russian people. The film's many layers intertwine real life and family relationships - Tarkovsky's father, the poet Arseny Tarkovsky, reads his own poems on the soundtrack and Tarkovsky's mother appears as herself - with memories of childhood, dreams and nightmares.
From the opening sequence of a boy being cured of a stammer by hypnotism, to a scene on a printing works which encapsulates the Stalinist era, 'Mirror' has an extraordinary resonance and repays countless viewings.

The Solaris mission has established a base on a planet that appears to host some kind of intelligence, but the details are hazy and very secret. After the mysterious demise of one of the three scientists on the base, the main character is sent out to replace him. He finds the station run-down and the two remaining scientists cold and secretive. When he also encounters his wife who has been dead for seven years, he begins to appreciate the baffling nature of the alien intelligence.

Deep within the Zone, a bleak and devastated forbidden landscape, lies a mysterious room with the power to grant the deepest wishes of those strong enough to make the hazardous journey there. Desperate to reach it, a scientist and a writer approach the Stalker, one of the few able to navigate the Zone's menacing terrain, and begin a dangerous trek into the unknown. Tarkovsky's second foray into science fiction after 'Solaris' is a surreal and disturbing vision of the future. Hauntingly exploring man's dreams and desires, and the consequences of realising them, 'Stalker', adapted from Arkady & Boris Sturgatsky's novel 'Roadside Picnic', has been described as one of the greatest SF films of all time.

During World War II, 12-year old Ivan works as a spy on the eastern front. The small Ivan can cross the German lines unnoticed to collect information…

At a spa in the Tuscan Hills, a Russian poet and musicologist, researching the life of an 18th century composer, meets a mysterious man who is convinced that the end of the world is nigh. The Russian, Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovsky), is asked to cross an ancient sulphur pool carrying a lighted candle as an act of faith. Tarkovsky's first film outside the USSR is full of personal and Christian symbols and works as a study of such themes as memory, melancholia and disenchantment with the material world.