Helga Olshvang: Blue is White
“Olshvang is simultaneously a full-blown Russian poet in the refined Russian Modernist tradition, evoking Boris Pasternak in her attention to everyday objects infused with emotional intensity, and Anna Akhmatova – incidentally the subject of one of her films – in her subtle but profound evocation of the experience of being a woman.”
Read more...0Blue as White (The Book of Margins)
“This author, writing in free verse, employing an extended syntactic arc and disjointed, loosely connected grammatical fragments rather than formal sentences, seems to proceed by intuitive, associative leaps, like a creeping vine that must find an immediate foothold before it can choose the vector for its movement, and footing for its subsequent segment. “
Read more...In the Footsteps of Anna Akhmatova: Helga Olshvang Landauer’s Cinemas a Form of Poetry
“When I make a film, I am trying to apply the same elements which concern me as a poet: rhythm, silence as a key structural element, and motion as the connective tissue. The ideal film, like a poem, is a vehicle of sorts, which takes you to an unexpected place different from where you started the journey…”
Read more...A Journey of Dmitri Shostakovich
“Despite its cold war orientation, a valuable introduction to one of the last century’s great composers filled with stunning images of a bygone era…”
Read more...- Village Voice
The impressionistic parade of footage [the filmmakers] present is a fascinating spectacle in its own right.
- New York Times
A Journey of Dmitry Shostakovich (2006) Setting Sail on a Bumpy Cruise With the Shadowy Shostakovich
A Journey of Dmitry Shostakovich (2006) Setting Sail on a Bumpy Cruise With the Shadowy Shostakovich
“Structured around a 1973 Soviet propaganda cruise to the United States that Shostakovich participated in two years before his death, this movie parallels the ocean voyage with his personal journey from child prodigy to bitter tool of the Politburo”
Read more... Review: “A Journey of Dmitry Shostakovich”
“An artful mix of archival footage, classical music and spoken selections from the composer’s letters and diaries, “A Journey of Dmitry Shostakovich” may strike a responsive chord with venturesome auds who frequent film-series screenings at museums, college campuses and other not-for-profit venues…”
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