The Klassiki Podcast

• Horror behind the Iron Curtain

  As every film fan knows, October is horror season. And while eastern Europe these days is full of horror filmmakers who can mix it with the best of them, this wasn’t always the case: under communism, the genre often struggled to get past state censors. But the idea that there was no horror produced behind the Iron Curtain is a myth. There was in fact a rich tradition in the sixties and seventies, drawing on national folklore, literary sources, and the region’s traumatic recent history to chilling effect. On Klassiki, you can currently stream a Halloween double header of cult classic Soviet films. Viy, by Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov, is famous among genre fans as the greatest of all Soviet horror titles, while Valeri Rubinchik’s The Savage Hunt of King Stakh is a criminally under-seen gothic gem from Belarus.  In the spirit of the season, this week Sam speaks with Miriam Balanescu, a film writer and critic with a special interest in all things ghoulish. They discussed the horror history of countries like Poland and Czechia, the political subtext of genre filmmaking under communism, and what ‘folk horror’ meant in the Soviet context.  Don’t miss our Halloween double header, now showing on Klassiki. Get in touch: [email protected]  Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

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• Mother Teresa and Persian poetry at the London Film Festival

  The 69th edition of the London Film Festival has just rolled through the capital’s cinemas, bringing a host of filmmaking talents in its wake. Sam headed down to the festival press circuit to speak to two directors in town with their latest films. First we hear from North Macedonia’s Teona Strugar Mitevska, who has been a shining light of Balkan filmmaking for over 20 years. Her latest film is perhaps her most ambitious yet: Mother, a punkish take on Mother Teresa starring Noomi Rapace, which had its premiere in Venice this summer. Then we catch up with acclaimed Iranian director Sharham Mokri, who travelled to neighbouring Tajikistan for his latest film, Black Rabbit, White Rabbit, which screened in competition in London. With the help of interpreter Iante Roach, Shahram and Sam discussed the deep links between Iranian and Tajik cinema – including how jumping between the two countries can help filmmakers from both to avoid growing censorship at home.  Read our interview with Teona on her previous film 21 Days Until the End of the World here. Read Tajik filmmaker Anisa Sabiri on the influence of Iranian cinema in Tajikistan here.  Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

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• The Strugatsky Brothers on screen

  Welcome back! It’s season five of the Klassiki podcast. We’ve got ten more great episodes lined up for you, featuring some exciting interviews, historical deep dives, and a Halloween special later this month. In the meantime, get in touch with us at [email protected].  We’re kicking things off with some science fiction. Boris and Arkady Strugatsky were brothers who dominated postwar Soviet sci-fi with their philosophical, subversive, and hugely popular novels and short stories. The Strugatskys also had a second life on screen, collaborating with a wide array of directors on adaptations of their work – most famously Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. You can’t really understand eastern bloc sci-fi without the Strugatsky Brothers. But who were they, where did their remarkable visions come from, and why have their proven so appealing to so many filmmakers?  To answer these questions, host Sam Goff speaks with Marat Grinberg,​Professor of Russian and Humanities at Reed College, who’s written extensively on Soviet sci-fi and the Jewish experience under communism. They discuss the Strugatskys’ traumatic childhoods, the ways their work has been transformed by directors from the 60s to the Putin era, and how their Jewishness informed their work.  Subscribers can watch two Strugatsky adaptations on Klassiki now: Aleksandr Sokurov’s Days of Eclipse and Grigori Kromanov’s Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel.  Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

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• Cinema of the Donbas

  We’ve reached the end season four! Thank you as always for listening along. We’ll be back in the autumn, so look out for that and make sure you’re subscribed in your podcast app of choice so you don’t miss out. In the meantime, we want to hear from you. Do you have questions, comments, complaints, or suggestions for the show? You can now email them to us at [email protected]. Get in touch ahead of the new season. We’re closing out season four with a look at a fascinating and misunderstood part of Ukraine: the Donbas. This resource-rich region in the east of the country was celebrated as the industrial heartland of the Soviet Union, but since 2014 has become synonymous with destruction and war after more than a decade of Russian aggression and occupation. It’s a region that has been subject to much controversy, within Ukraine as well as internationally, but its vibrant and diverse history is too often overlooked. It’s this history that Victoria Donovan has set out to capture in her fantastic new book, Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East. Victoria draws on her extensive travel and research in Donbas to move past the clichés and give a human perspective on events. Host Sam Goff sat down with her to discuss the book, and to explore how film has been used and abused in creating an image of the region. We’ve put together a playlist of some of the films discussed in this episode for Klassiki subscribers, which you can find here. Buy Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East here. Read an interview with Freefilmers here and explore their recent work here. Explore documentary material from the Donbas in the Urban Media Archive here. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

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• From Shakespeare to Solaris: the otherworldly career of Jüri Järvet

  For this episode, we’re dipping back in to the archive of writing on the Klassiki Journal for a profile of the great Estonian actor Jüri Järvet – a cult hero of Soviet and Baltic film who overcame family trauma as a young man before bursting onto the international scene in the 1970s. In the space of just a few years, Jarvet helped to modernise Estonian cinema, worked with Tarkovsky, and played King Lear to huge critical and popular acclaim. Despite this, his story is not well known in the West. Read the original piece here and watch Järvet’s classic turns in Madness and Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

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