Concert production of classic Soviet silent film tours Russia

Tromsø International Film Festival (TIFF) has for the last couple of years toured cinemas in Northwest Russia with short films from the festival’s Films from the North program. This year the festival is presenting audiences with a special treat – the Soviet classic silent film The House on Trubnaya, set with brand new music, played live by Russian and Norwegian musicians.

The concert was first played at TIFF in January 2014 and will now tour five towns in Northwest Russia and Moscow, project manager Igor Shaytanov says to BarentsObserver.

Boris Barnet’s The House on Trubnaya (1928) is a lively comedy, a celebration of the new Soviet way of life and a social commentary to the troublesome 1920s. Unknown to Western audiences for 60 years, it is now seen as a masterpiece of Soviet silent cinema, in the way in combines great comic timing with avant-garde storytelling techniques.

The film will be set to new original music, performed by an ensemble led by the Tromsø-based cellist Bernt Simen Lund. The other musicians are Arkadiy Shilkloper, Erik Stifjell and Yekaterina Yefremova.

The film will be screened in Murmansk (07.09), Apatity (08.09), Moscow (09.09), Petrozavodsk (18.09), St.Petersburg (19.09) and Arkhangelsk (20.09).