Lok Virsa to screen Russian film Saturday.

ISLAMABAD: National Institute of Folk and Traditional

Heritage, Lok Virsa will screen Andrei Rublev - a 1996 Soviet film here on February 13.

The film also known as `The Passion According to Andrei' is a Russian

film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky from a screenplay written by him and

Andrei Konchalovsky. The film is based on the life of Andrei Rublev, the

great 15th-century Russian icon painter. It features Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Sergeyev, Nikolai Burlyayev and Tarkovsky's wife Irma Raush. Savva Yamshchikov, a famous Russian restorer and art historian, was a scientific consultant of the film.

Andrei Rublev is set against the background of 15th-century Russia.

Although the film is only loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev,

it seeks to depict a realistic portrait of medieval Russia. Tarkovsky sought to create a film that shows the artist as "a world-historic figure" and "Christianity as an axiom of Russia's historical identity" during a turbulent period of Russian history that ultimately resulted in the Tsardom of Russia.

The film's themes include artistic freedom, religion, political

ambiguity, autodidacticism, and the making of art under a repressive

regime. Because of this, it was not released domestically in the

officially atheist and authoritarian Soviet Union for years after it was completed, except for a single 1966 screening in Moscow. A version

of the film was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the

FIPRESCI prize. In 1971, a censored version of the film was released in

the Soviet Union.

Although these issues with censorship obscured and truncated the

film for many years following its release, since being restored to its

original version, Andrei Rublev has come to be regarded as one of the

greatest films of all time, and has often been ranked highly in both

the Sight and Sound critics' and directors' polls.

Andrei Rublev won several awards. In 1971 Andrei Rublev won the

Critics Award of the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, and in 1973

the Jussi Award for best foreign film. While in 2010 the film was honored when it came equal second in a U.K. newspaper series of the "Greatest Films of All Time" as voted by critics from The Guardian and The Observer. The film is rated at No. 25 on the Rate Your Music website's top 100 films chart.

The film club of Lok Virsa is a regular program of Lok Virsa which

screens super hit national and international classical films to revive the

classical cinema in the twincities and involve the fun lovers in healthy

activities.

This initiative will keep alive the dying culture of classical

cinema and traditions among the young generation, said Fouzia Saeed,

Executive Director, Lok Virsa while talking to media.

On every weekend, the Lok Virsa screens movies and invite audience

from all walks of life to entertain them as well as engage them in cultural

programmes, she said.