The lonely voice of Aleksandr Sokurov

This month, audiences in London have been enjoying the opportunity to revisit the works of one of Russian cinema’s grandees with a retrospective of the films of Aleksandr Sokurov, organised by the cultural institute Pushkin House. Best known in the West for his 2002 epic Russian Ark, Sokurov has been pursuing his unique brand of dreamlike cinema in features, shorts, and documentaries since the end of the 1970s, with his latest film, Fairytale, receiving its UK premiere as part of the retrospective.

Sokurov is arguably the last living embodiment of the figure of the classic Russian arthouse director, in all its contradictions. His heritage stretches back to Andrei Tarkovsky and forward to contemporary figures like Kantemir Balagov, and he has a complicated, sometimes problematic relationship to Russian military and imperial power. To make sense of Sokurov in 2024, host Sam Goff sits down with the film historian, curator, and broadcaster Ian Christie, who has been working on and with Sokurov since the 1980s, and was involved in bringing his films to the UK for the first time during perestroika. 

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Intro music by Juliet Merchant.