Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Sci-Fi London Festival
The UK’s only dedicated SF and Fantastic film festival,runs from 26 to 30 April 2006
The festival takes place at the new APOLLO WEST END cinema in Lower Regent Street, central London. Besides having a range of films that cover alternative histories and 'posthuman' androids one film is of specific interest to us. Here's what their enthusiatic press release says about it:
FIRST ON THE MOON (Perviyje na lune) (Russia 2005, Dir: Aleksey Fedorchenko, 75mins Colour & b/w)
A wonderful “alternative history” told with style, this "mockumentary" mixes facts and fantasy, vintage footage, and fake footage to show the successes and failures, the injustices and contradictions in Stalinist Russia, using the space program as the basis.
The film begins in the spring of 1938, in the mountains of northern Chile, where a flying object fell, in flames. Investigation by a film crew uncovers a secret space program developed in the Soviet Union before World War II. Scientists and military authorities, the film would have you believe, had developed a spaceship 23 years before Yuri Gagarin ever went to space.
The perfect timing of each scene, the meticulous attention to detail, the amazing amateur cast (none of the actors have appeared in a film before) the deadpan voice-over, the humour, and even the surprisingly moving tragic scenes - if you know anything at all about Russia, there's everything to guarantee that you'll love this film.
***
Is it really a piece of fiction, or part of the on-going propoganda programme to get us used to the concept of alien contact and reverse-technology? Que X-Files music and run credits...
Details of the event can be found at:
www.sci-fi-london.com.
The festival takes place at the new APOLLO WEST END cinema in Lower Regent Street, central London. Besides having a range of films that cover alternative histories and 'posthuman' androids one film is of specific interest to us. Here's what their enthusiatic press release says about it:
FIRST ON THE MOON (Perviyje na lune) (Russia 2005, Dir: Aleksey Fedorchenko, 75mins Colour & b/w)
A wonderful “alternative history” told with style, this "mockumentary" mixes facts and fantasy, vintage footage, and fake footage to show the successes and failures, the injustices and contradictions in Stalinist Russia, using the space program as the basis.
The film begins in the spring of 1938, in the mountains of northern Chile, where a flying object fell, in flames. Investigation by a film crew uncovers a secret space program developed in the Soviet Union before World War II. Scientists and military authorities, the film would have you believe, had developed a spaceship 23 years before Yuri Gagarin ever went to space.
The perfect timing of each scene, the meticulous attention to detail, the amazing amateur cast (none of the actors have appeared in a film before) the deadpan voice-over, the humour, and even the surprisingly moving tragic scenes - if you know anything at all about Russia, there's everything to guarantee that you'll love this film.
***
Is it really a piece of fiction, or part of the on-going propoganda programme to get us used to the concept of alien contact and reverse-technology? Que X-Files music and run credits...
Details of the event can be found at:
www.sci-fi-london.com.
# posted by Nigel @ 10:28 
