This rare 35mm screening is sponsored and was organized by the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. University co-sponsors include the University Center for International Studies, the Graduate Program for Cultural Studies, and the Pittsburgh Russian Film Symposium. Special thanks to Michel Seydoux atCamera One (Paris).
The screening of The Barber of Siberia will take place at 8pm, Friday 22 November, 2003 in the Alumni Hall Screening Room. Birgit Beumers (University of Bristol, UK), will introduce the film.
Russia, 1885. Eccentric American inventor Douglas McKracken arrives in Moscow with his daughter, Jane, intent on winning the monarchy's approval to develop and use his mammoth tree-cutting machine, the Barber of Siberia, in the Russian taiga. Jane has a chance encounter on the train with young Andrei Tolstoi (no relation), coincidentally a cadet at the military academy whose commanding officer, General Radlov, is the intended target of the seductively charming Jane's powers of persuasion as she helps McCracken obtain his permits. A tragic love triangle develops when both Tolstoi and Radlov fall in love with her. The young cadet ultimately makes a fateful decision that demonstrates his devotion both to his beloved and to the honor code of Russian officers, leaving Jane in permanent awe of the emotional intensity and inscrutability of the Russian soul.
"He's Russian. That explains a lot."
–Marketing slogan for The Barber of Siberia
Promotional Web site: http://mikhalkov.comstar.ru/