The Watzek Film Series, focusing on Soviet Cinema, kicks off Friday, January 28 at 7 pm in Miller 105. The first film in the series is WINGS, directed by Larisa Shepitko in 1966.
Although largely forgotten today outside of Russia, Larisa Shepitko was one of the few Soviet women filmmakers able to gain some measure of recognition in the male-dominated international cinema scene of the 60s-70s. The 1966 film WINGS, her first film after graduating from the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography, chronicles the increasingly disillusioned life of a school headmistress (Maya Bulgakova) as she struggles against her longing for the past, where she gained notoriety as a highly-decorated fighter pilot in the Soviet VVS. Shepitko and Bulgakova create a solemn character study that accentuates the difficulties some Russian women experienced during the postwar years, transitioning from the equality and autonomy of their wartime roles to the everyday drudgery and expectations of a patriarchal Soviet society still mired in traditional gender divisions.
For more information about the Soviet Film Series, contact Jim Bunnelle (bunnelle@lclark.edu)
