Fwd: Russian Film Symposium 2013

From: Padunov, Vladimir <[email protected]>

The fifteenth annual Russian Film Symposium, "Re-Imagining Class: Recent
Russian Cinema" will be held on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh
from Monday 29 April through Saturday 4 May 2013, with evening screenings
at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Melwood Screening Room.

The rigid and hereditary system of estates (nobility, gentry, merchantry,
clergy, serfs, etc.) established by Peter the Great at the end of the
seventeenth century virtually precluded any upward social mobility.  This
official system remained in place until the October Revolution and the
founding of the Soviet state with its "dictatorship of the proletariat,"
equally effective in preventing the emergence of a  class-stratified
society with the potential for social mobility.  If the first decade of the
post-Soviet implosion was marked by the almost overnight appearance of
oligarchs (super-rich and politically powerful individuals usually
monopolizing former state industries connected to minerals, oil, gas,
media, and transport), then the second post-Soviet decade has been marked
by what the Western press refers to as "the rising Russian middle class"
(but representatives of the Russian state derisively refer to as "office
plankton," "clerical class," or "hamsters" in their statements to the mass
media).  These "hamsters" demonstrated their political clout beginning in
December 2011 with massive protests over voting fraud in the parliamentary
elections.

While the existence of this "middle class" is beyond dispute, there is an
enormous gap between the living conditions of this class (especially in
major cities) and the ways in which these lives are represented in Russian
cinema of the past decade.  Moscow (for example) is one of the five most
expensive cities in the world, not just in terms of real estate prices, but
also in the cost of food and clothing.  As a consequence, the majority of
the members of the "middle class" work multiple jobs just to get through
the month.

The on-screen images of this class belie this reality: they are invariably
represented as living in spacious apartments, thoroughly modernized and
up-graded with every imaginable convenience; they dress in high fashion,
drive expensive European cars, dine in up-scale restaurants, vacation in
every European country imaginable, etc.  In effect, Russia has two "middle
classes"--a real one and a celluloid one.  The fifteenth Russian Film
Symposium will focus on this contradiction.



For a schedule of screenings and panels, as well as a listing of
participants, please visit the Symposium's website at www.rusfilm.pitt.edu<
http://www.rusfilm.pitt.edu>.


___________________________________________
Vladimir Padunov
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Pittsburgh
427 Cathedral of Learning
Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Phone: 412-624-5713                      FAX: 412-624-9714

Russian Film Symposium      http://www.rusfilm.pitt.edu

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