This is the 2010 award-winning documentary film, written, produced and directed
by Amanda Pope and Tchavdar Georgiev. Cinematography by Alexander Dolgin &
Gennadi Balitski. Original music by Miriam Cutler. <www.DesertOfForbiddenArt.com>
It says a story of how Igor V. Savistsky (1915-84), a Russian painter,
archeologist and collector, stashed more than 44,000 censored Soviet Union
paintings into the Nukus Museum is a hidden corner of Uzbekistan, in the remote
Kyzylkum Desert, on the shores of the Aral Sea, - is a portrait of defiant
vision blended with tremendous contemporary art. In viewing the collection, it's
no overstatement to say - as did New York Times reporter - that an entire
chapter of art history should be rewritten due to these works.
Dubbed
'Le Louvre des Steppes' by Télérama magazine, the museum houses a collection of
about 90,000 items, ranging from antiquities from Khorezm to Karakalpak folk
art, Uzbek fine art and, uniquely, the second largest collection of Russian
avant-garde in the world. Although the ancient Silk Road cities of Samarkand,
Bukhara and Khiva may be better known, the Nukus Museum is in fact the fourth
splendor of Uzbekistan. With its impeccable research, exquisite cinematography,
and flawless editing `The Desert of Forbidden Art' is storytelling at its best,
and affords an otherwise impossible entry into this dazzlingly creative and
colorful world. Both the collection and the film are brilliant.
Film
is in English and Russian, with English subtitles. Running Time: 80
min.
Note: Some of SRH members had a lucky chance to watch this film at
our venue in July 2010, but the majority of SRH community is looking for that
remarkable screening - especially after the inspiring presentation "The
Avant-Garde Savitsky Collection from Nukus, Uzbekistan" by Richard Dion, a Board
Member of the Friends of Nukus Museum, which took place at SRH on May 11,
2013.
Saturday June 22nd at 5pm to 7pm.
Silk Road House, 1944
University Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 (between Milvia & Martin Luther King;
enter by side door in passageway under black Zabu Zabu awning); e-mail: silkroadhouse@yahoo.com; website: www.silkroadhouse.org; facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SilkRoadHouse;
tel.: 510-981-0700.
