The Factory of the Eccentric Actor exploded into Petrograd in 1921. Two youngsters from Kyiv and Odesa, Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg, determined to make their mark, were soon hailed by such literary grandees as Viktor Shklovsky and Yuri Tynyanov, and began making films from 1924. Their manifestos and early scripts are now available in a new illustrated book which Ian Christie will present. Film extracts to be shown at this launch include a 1982 interview with Trauberg in London. The screening will be accompanied by a discussion about the legacies of the avant-garde projects and their relevance to filmmaking today. 

Ian Christie is Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London. He has co-edited and curated many publications and exhibitions about Russian cinema and its cultural context. Most recently, The Eisenstein Universe (2021, with Julia Vasillieva); the exhibition, Unexpected Eisenstein (2016, with Elena Sudakova); and the film A Trip to Tetlapayac (2023, with Chiema Shimada). In 1978, he edited a booklet FEKS, Formalism, Futurism, and later brought Leonid Trauberg to London.