The Klassiki Podcast

Eisenstein and Ivan the Terrible today

2024 marks 80 years since the release of the great Sergei Eisenstein’s final, unfinished masterpiece: Ivan the Terrible. Commissioned by Stalin himself to make a biopic celebrating the bloodthirsty 16th-century tsar, Eisenstein instead produced a complex portrait of paranoia and power that remains relevant to this day.
To get to the heart of Eisenstein’s Ivan, host Sam Goff speaks with Joan Neuberger, Professor Emerita at the University of Texas and the author of This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia.
Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

The lonely voice of Aleksandr Sokurov

This month, audiences in London have been revisiting the works of one of Russian cinema’s grandees, with a retrospective of the films of Aleksandr Sokurov, organised by the cultural institute Pushkin House. Best known in the West for his 2002 epic Russian Ark, Sokurov is arguably the last living embodiment of the classic Russian arthouse director, in all its contradictions. 
To make sense of Sokurov in 2024, host Sam Goff sits down with film historian and curator Ian Christie, who has been working on and with the director since the 1980s. 
Find out more about the Sokurov season and Pushkin House here. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

Poland in the 80s, from Wajda to Kieślowski

In this guide, first published on the Klassiki Journal and written and read by host Sam Goff, we introduce the cinema of Poland in the 1980s. The last decade of communist rule was a period marked by the brutality of martial law, but also the emergence of critical new voices and masterpieces from figures such as Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, and Krzysztof Kieślowski.
Read the original piece here and make sure to explore our collection of Polish titles. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

Dea Kulumbegashvili and Petar Valchanov at the London Film Festival

This month saw the 68th edition of the London Film Festival hit the capital’s cinemas. Host Sam Goff went down to the festival press circuit to get hold of two of Eastern Europe’s finest: Georgia’s Dea Kulumbegashvili, whose abortion drama April has been turning heads since it won the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival; and Bulgaria’s Petar Valchanov, whose latest stranger-than-fiction tale recreates a bizarre episode from his nation’s recent history involving psychics and alien artefacts... 
Watch Petar’s 2019 drama The Father on Klassiki now. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

The footballing fantasies of Sandro Koberidze

Georgian filmmaker Sandro Koberidze joins host Sam Goff to chat about his forthcoming film Dry Leaf and the hidden connections between his two great passions: cinema and football.
Watch Sandro’s award-winning What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? on Klassiki now. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

Under the Volcano: Damian Kocur reimagines the Ukraine war drama

Host Sam Goff sits down with Polish filmmaker Damian Kocur to discuss his new Ukraine war drama Under the Volcano. The film follows a Ukrainian family who are vacationing in Tenerife when the full-scale war breaks out back home, leaving them stranded on the island. Damian explains how he applied his idiosyncratic filmmaking technique to this story of grief and dislocation, and how the war has affected both Ukrainian filmmakers and their neighbours in eastern Europe.
Watch Damian’s debut feature Bread and Salt on Klassiki now. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

Prefab pictures: cinema of the tower block with Owen Hatherley

The Klassiki Podcast is back for our second season. We’re kicking off with an interview with author Owen Hatherley about the history of the tower block on screen. Widely understood in the West as symbolic of the grey monotony of life behind the Iron Curtain, the prefab tower block remains misunderstood more than three decades after the fall of communism. 
To get past the clichés, host Sam Goff sat down with Owen to discuss five films set in and around these mass housing monoliths, from five different directors – including iconic auteurs Béla Tarr, Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Věra Chytilová – to see how the image of the block changed over time.
Check out Owen’s books about his journeys through Eastern Europe, Landscapes of Communism and The Adventures of Owen Hatherley in the Post-Soviet Space. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

Yuliya Solntseva: the forgotten queen of Soviet film

In this profile, written by critic and curator Rachel Pronger and first published on the Klassiki Journal, we introduce you to one of the most consequential and misunderstood figures in Soviet film history: Yuliya Solntseva. A silent star who became one half of Ukraine’s most influential creative marriage but whose place in history has been obscured for too long.
Klassiki subscribers can watch Solntseva’s iconic performances in Aelita and Earth now. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

The fight for the future of Georgian film

Host Sam Goff is joined by two representatives of the so-called “film movement” in Georgia – Keti Machavariani of the Georgian Film Institute, and Keto Kipiani of the Documentary Association of Georgia – to discuss cinema’s place in the ongoing protest movement against the increasing authoritarianism of the country’s government. They explain the situation on the ground for filmmakers and how the film world relates to the wider protest movement fighting for Georgia’s future.
Klassiki subscribers can explore our collection of Georgian titles here. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

Springtime for Soviet cinema: the films of the Thaw

In this guide, first published on the Klassiki Journal and written and read by host Sam Goff, we introduce the cinema of the Soviet Thaw. As a new era of cultural freedom swept the USSR after the death of Stalin, iconic directors like Mikhail Kalatozov and Marlen Khutsiev created a new cinematic language defined by sincerity and stylistic innovation.
Read the original piece here and make sure to explore our collections of classic Soviet and cult sixties film. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.