SU 1927, D Abram Room, SC Abram Room, Viktor Shklovskiy, C Grigori Giber, P Sovkino Studio, Cast Nikolay Batalov, Lyudmila Semyonova, Leonid Jurenev, Vladimir Fogel, Yelena Sokolova, Mariya Yarotskaya, Print b/w, DCP from 35mm, 86 min, silent, English SUB and electronic German SUB, Lobster Films

Introduction by Rosalinde Sartori

Free love, an emancipated woman, and a Komsomol ménage-a-trois in the proletarian Moscow of Lenin’s New Economic Policy. Bed and sofa change their occupancy as often as the unleashed camera changes perspective and Liuda changes her sex partners. The latter are basically all the same – men who tend to be inattentive – and thus, pregnant, she leaves the world of Dritte Kleinbürgerstraße. ‘Passionate, talented, nervous, daring and adventuresome (Viktor Shklovskiy)’, (…) Abraham Room is unfortunately nearly forgotten today. His film, shot in only 16 days, is a brilliant fine adjustment of daily life that combines a Vertovesque metropolis symphony with Kuleshovesque esprit and Italian neorealism avant la lettre. (Barbara Wurm, programme booklet Österreichisches Filmmuseum, May 2006).

Accompanied on the piano by Eunice Martin