March 19, 2019
REZO – DIRECTED BY LEO GABRIADZE
RUSSIA/GEORGIA 2017 63 MINS IN RUSSIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
TALE OF TALES – DIRECTED AND ANIMATED BY YURI NORSTEIN
RUSSIA 1979 30 MINS IN RUSSIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Two wonderful Russian animations invoke the pathos of Dostoyevsky and the off-kilter humor of Chekhov. REZO is a whimsical cartoon based on the life and art of Rezo Gabriadze (the filmmaker’s father), who grew up during the Second World War (his “oasis” was “library #6”) to become a screenwriter, film director, and founder of a beloved puppet theater. With nuance and wit, REZO suggests that the life of an artist provides refuge from a world of brute force and stupidity. Coupled with Yuri Norstein’s legendary TALE OF TALES, a movie justly celebrated as one of the greatest animated films of all time. An adorable wolf, a minotaur, a cat, and a fish populate a small boy’s world in which soldiers leave for war, never to return, and a baby suckles at his mother’s breast. Snow falls on apple trees as 20 million Russians disappear…
Presented with support from the Helen Frankenthaler Endowed Fund for Films on Art and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund