Heat / Зной (Larisa Shepitko, 1963)

Wheelchair accessible* | In Russian; with English subtitles
Pay-what-you-can tickets (£4 / £7 / £10)

If the ticket or other costs, such as childcare or transport, make this screening unaffordable, please see details of our Audience Access Fund.

Larisa Shepitko's debut film follows a young graduate Kemel sent to a remote steppe during the Virgin Lands Campaign, where his idealism and progressivism clash with the rigid, hierarchical order of life in his new collective. Oscillating between the epic, state-led visuality of the era and a subversive, new-wave-like lightness and minimalism, this take on a short story by Chingiz Aitmatov, Kyrgyzstan’s most celebrated national writer, is reimagined through the lens of a young Ukrainian woman, herself a mere film-school graduate, and reveals a new facet with each viewing. Institutional scientific knowledge battles the authority of pure experience; modernity locks horns with tradition; future and past, equality and subjugation, socialism and feudalism collide. And yet Shepitko somehow keeps her story clear of simplistic binaries, of picking sides, of a tired good versus evil narrative. An enigmatic, timeless, and free herdswoman appears out of nowhere, and her presence in Kemel's reality feels more exciting and meaningful than all the tractors, transistors, and five-year plans of Soviet modernity.

Content notes: domestic violence, emotional distress

Curated by Ilia Ryzhenko

* Please note, The Lower Hall at the Pyramid at Anderston is wheelchair accessible through a ramp at a side entrance. There are 9 steps between the level where it is located and the rest of the venue, meaning that to make way to the accessible toilet or other parts of the building, wheelchair users will need to re-enter via the main entrance. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.