Alliance of Women Film Journalists Selection! Read an excerpt from Nell Minow's AWFJ review: "'Victims or vanguards?' That is the challenge faced by the artists in REVOLUTION: NEW ART FOR A NEW WORLD, a documentary about the freedom-seeking artists who helped overthrow Russia’s repressive tsarist regime, only to find themselves repressed by its totalitarian replacement, Stalin. And the answer, sadly, was both. Down with abstraction. Up with realist monuments to revolutionary leaders, 'monumental propaganda.' An artist who capitulated found one kind of success. A copy of his portrait of Lenin was hung in every Soviet schoolroom. Another ended up designing textiles for tractors."

-----

Drawing on the collections of major Russian institutions, contributions from contemporary artists, curators, and performers, as well as personal testimony from the descendants of those involved, REVOLUTION: NEW ART FOR A NEW WORLD brings the art of the Russian Avant-Garde to life. This compelling documentary tells the stories of artists such as Chagall, Kandinsky and Malevich – pioneers who flourished in response to the Utopian challenge of building a “New Art for a New World,” only to be broken after fifteen short years by Stalin’s rise to power. Yet their inventive paintings, sculptures and posters miraculously survived and continue to exert a lasting influence to this day.

DIRECTED BY MARGY KINMONTH
UNITED KINGDOM | 2016 | ENGLISH LANGUAGE