In the early 1980s, two moments of underground film — the so-called
Parallel Cinema — emerge in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) and Moscow. For the
first time radical young filmmakers, painters and artists produce amateur
films, mainly in 16mm, outside of Goskino’s state monopoly. While the Moscow
school’s approach to film is shaped by the influence of conceptualist art, the
Leningrad school, associated with “Necrorealism,” explores an expressionist and
absurd cinema, circling around death, decay and horror.
As part of its Russia focus 2020, the East European Film Bulletin is
preparing a special issue on Soviet Parallel Cinema (parallelnoe kino), an
experimental film movement in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. We are looking for
contributions on underground films and video art by, among others, Igor and
Gleb Aleinikov, Evgeny Iufit, Evgeny Kondratiev (Debil), Boris Yukhananov,
Andrej Myortvy, Konstantin Mitenev, Igor Bezrukov, Alexander Doulerain,
Vladimir Zakharov, Oleg Kotelnikov etc.
