Feature documentary/ work in progress
Original idea, written and directed by Sean Martin and Louise Milne
For many years I have been tormented by the
certainty that the most extrordinary discoveries await us in the sphere of time.
We know less about time than about anything else…
Andrei Tarkovsky, Diaries 15th feb 1972
Tarkovsky: Cinema of Dreams is the first feature-length documentary to deal with the whole of Tarkovsky’s life and work: all seven feature films – each a landmark of post-war cinema – together with his lesser known works for radio, stage and television. Our film is a comprehensive portrait of the artist and his art, using the full potential of modern documentary techniques. We examine the myth of Tarkovsky, the controversies surrounding his films and the themes of his career. Above all, we focus on.
Soviet regime. The arc of the film follows the trajectory from his internationally fêted debut, Ivan’s Childhood (1962), championed by no less a figure than Jean-Paul Sartre, through his extraordinary, often painful labours, creating six further films, to his untimely death on the eve of perestroika in 1986, and subsequent critical rehabilitation in his homeland and beyond. Tarkovsky was born into a world whose cultural and political boundaries have now been swept into new shapes. His surviving friends and colleagues remember him now over the span of a generation, while his films now reach a global audience in the digital cinephile landscape of the new century. New perspectives open on the meaning of this visionary cinema. Using Tarkovsky’s own words, and his own filmic aesthetic, this documentary will explore his films as he intended them to be seen, as sculptures of time, dreams and memories. In this way, we celebrate Tarkovsky’s great legacy to world cinema, growing in stature and influence year by year.
Our film uses Tarkovsky’s own words to tell the story of the making of his seven feature films: Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, Stalker, Nostalgia and The Sacrifice. This structure avoids the conventional biopic approach, focusing our film firmly on Tarkovsky’s works and artistic vision. Given that Tarkovsky above all argued that the film-maker’s task is to find equivalents for personal lived experience in film, some biographical detail naturally emerges in the course of the documentary, but our centre of gravity is the films and their imagery.
TECHNICAL SPECS
- Title: Tarkovsky, Cinema of Dreams
- Genre: Feature documentary
- Nationality: Canada/ Spain
- Languague: English/ Russian
- Running time: 90 min
- Color: Color/ B&W
CREW
- Original idea, written and directed by Sean Martin and Louise Milne
- Cinematographer in Spain Javier Quintanilla
- Original music Jesús Salvador “Chapi”
- Produced by Tarannà Films/ André Bennett Productions
