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Representations of Childhood in Russian and Polish Films

Fri, November 21, 8:00 to 9:45am EST (8:00 to 9:45am EST), -

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores the variety and complexity of representations of childhood in Polish and Russian films, including both artistic and pedagogical works. As they contextualize the films from national, cultural, and political perspectives, the panelists also consider broad themes and resonances. Employing diverse approaches, the panelists address some of the tensions intrinsic to depictions of childhood; for instance, children appear as recipients of tradition or knowledge and also as agents of change. The panel interrogates the function and role of the experience of childhood as a key subject in Russian and Polish films.

Nikolay Smirnov analyzes Kieszlowski’s Dekalog 1 in connection with the chapter “The Boys” in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. He studies these two portraits of gifted children and poses questions about the uniqueness of the childhood experience in the Eastern European context. Karina Povsteva examines diapositive films for children as a part of pedestrian safety education of the 1930s. She traces the main elements of the urban environment in these films and how they were framed as pedagogical tools. Alla Baeva situates Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood and Nostalghia within cinematic philosophy, its main approaches and its main authors, discussing aesthetics of dreams and questions of memory and its reliability. Kirsten Rutsala investigates personal and public memory in Chukhrai’s The Thief and Zviagintsev’s The Return through the perspectives of the child protagonists, exploring how these films respectively position the Stalin era and the collapse of the Soviet Union within the individual experiences of the characters.

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