Short film program:

Introduction by Annouchka De Andrade

L’hôpital de Leningrad (Leningrad Hospital)
Sarah Maldoror, France 1982, 59 min. French with English subtitles, DCP

Vlady – Peintre (Vlady – Painter)
Sarah Maldoror, France, Mexico 1989, 24 min. French and Spanish with English subtitles, digital

Based on a short story by Victor Serge and starring Rüdiger Vogler and Roger Blin, L'Hôpital de Leningrad tells the story of the Russian Revolution turning into Stalinist terror. Serge is invited to the oldest psychiatric hospital in Leningrad, where he meets people persecuted by the Soviet system. The thinker Nestor Yuriyev begins a philosophical discourse with him: at the center of his thoughts is the conviction that only by overcoming fear is it possible to think freely. In Vlady - Peintre, Maldoror visits Victor Serge's son, the painter Vladimir Kibalchich, in Mexico, where Serge fled to with his family. Using a mural filled with historical symbols, the painter explains his style, but also remembers his father, his friendship with Trotsky and growing up in exile. (EK)