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Unlike Abbas Kiarostami, a poet of contemporary cinema whose films stopped being about Iran when he stopped making films there, Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia’s preeminent poet of the spirit, proved that while a Russian director could leave his homeland in the name of artistic freedom, he could still be imprisoned by the memories he took with him.

In his book Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky wrote that he wanted Nostalghia, his first film after leaving Russia to escape censorship, to be “about the particular state of mind which assails Russians who are far from their native land.” Shot in Italy and written by Tarkovsky and Tonino Guerra, the film explores this acute form of nostalgia through a spiritually wearied poet, Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovskiy), who’s traveled to Italy to research the life of a composer who studied in Bologna during the late 1700s before returning to Russia to hang himself.

With no new bust-out limited releases, repertory continues to do its part for the specialty box office, the latest a 4k restoration of Nostalghia. Kino Lorber said the Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1983 film, which opened Wednesday, will gross an estimated $22.87k at Film Forum in NYC for the five days.

It’s currently the top performer at the theater and will take in more than all other films screening there combined over that period. Two additional shows at the Roxie in San Francisco and the Austin Film Society bring combined grosses to about $29.4k. Expands next week to Philadelphia and Montreal with additional markets coming later. The film about a Russian poet and his interpreter, who travel to Italy researching the life of an 18th-century composer, stars Oleg Yankovskiy, Andrei Gorchakov, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano and Patrizia Terreno.

Kino Lorber had success with the restored 4k re-release of Bernardo Bertolucci’s...

Nostalghia (1983)

Written by Andrei Tarkovsky and Tonino Guerra

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

Italy, 1983

Nostalghia was Andrei Tarkovsky’s penultimate film, and the 1983 movie, made for Italian television, has the tone and scope of a work of contemplation and austere topicality, not at all uncommon for an artist in his or her later portions of life. The notion of this frequent tendency, to broach issues of dire seriousness in concluding creations, doesn’t work seamlessly with Tarkovsky, though. To begin with, while Nostalghia may have been his second-to-last feature, he was only 51 at the time (he tragically passed away just 3 years and one film later). In addition, this type of weighty subject matter had been common thematic territory for Tarkovsky since his first films in the early 1960s. And though only having made seven feature films, each approach was a spiritual level of visual, verbal, and atmospheric transcendence not regularly attempted by many other filmmakers,...

Beloved Russian actor Oleg Yankovsky has died after a battle with cancer. He was 65.

His career spanned five decades and included many iconic roles in classic Russian movies like Shield & Sword and Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalgia.

One of his final films, Tsar, recently screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival in France.

Yankovsky's death was marked by a day of unofficial mourning on Wednesday, when the news of his passing led morning news broadcasts in the former Soviet Union.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have both paid tribute to the actor - Putin called Yankovsky "an actor from God", revealing it was his role in Shield & Sword that inspired the young politician to become a member of the Kgb.

President Medvedev credited the star with being able to "fully represent the times he lived in" in his films.

Yankovsky, who was honoured as a People's Artist of the U.S.S.R., was born in Kazakhstan in 1944. He will be buried at Moscow's prestigious Novodevichy Cemetery on Friday.

So, we had zazous in France, swingjugend in Germany, and a little more on the rock side, the Go Go clubs of 고고 70s (Go Go 70s). Now you can add Стиляги (Stilyagi) to the list.

Oversized shoes? Check. Insanely colorful ties? Check. 50s Cartoon-like hair, without a single hint of mustaches or beards? Check. Grown ass (Russian) men calling each other Dick or Bob despite Momma still sticking to Dimitri? Ohh yes. The stilyagi (roughly “style hunters") craze was one of the biggest cultural movements hitting early 1950s Russia. It was, as it’s generally the case with anti-establishment counter-cultures, a way for young Russians to fight Stalinism in their own way, just like Jo Seung-Woo and Co. fight the Park junta with rock and roll in Choi Ho’s upcoming film. Despite Stalin’s continued tentative to rid the USSR of any hint of American culture ("filthy, decadent...

MOSCOW -- Mark Rudinshtein, organizer of Russia's leading domestic movie showcase, Kinotavr -- held annually for the past 15 years in the Black Sea resort of Sochi -- said Monday that he is leaving the festival. Festival president Oleg Yankovsky also is stepping down after this year's event. No successor for Yankovsky has been announced. The festival program, which combines the best domestic films of the year and an eclectic selection of foreign films in international competition, opened Tuesday for its two-week run.