The Prince Charles Cinema

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Stalker
1979 161mins Soviet Union (PG) Science Fiction
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky Starring Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Alisa Freyndlikh, Anatoliy Solonitsyn

In an unnamed country at an unspecified time, there is a fiercely protected post-apocalyptic wasteland known as The Zone. An illegal guide (Aleksandr Kajdanovsky), whose mutant child suggests unspeakable horrors within The Zone, leads a writer (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) and a scientist (Nikolay Grinko) into the heart of the devastation in search of a mythical place known only as The Room. Anyone who enters The Room will supposedly have any of his earthly desires immediately fulfilled.

Solaris (1972)
1972 167mins Soviet Union (12A) Science Fiction
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky Starring Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet, Natalya Bondarchuk

A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.

Andrei Rublev
1966 183mins Soviet Union (15) Biography
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky Starring Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolay Grinko

Tracing the life of a renowned icon painter, the second feature by Andrei Tarkovsky vividly conjures the murky world of medieval Russia. This dreamlike and remarkably tactile film follows Andrei Rublev as he passes through a series of poetically linked scenes—snow falls inside an unfinished church, naked pagans stream through a thicket during a torchlit ritual, a boy oversees the clearing away of muddy earth for the forging of a gigantic bell—gradually emerging as a man struggling mightily to preserve his creative and religious integrity. Appearing here in the director's preferred 183-minute cut as well as the version that was originally suppressed by Soviet authorities, the masterwork Andrei Rublev is one of Tarkovsky's most revered films, an arresting meditation on art, faith, and endurance.

Ivan's Childhood
1962 95mins Soviet Union (12A) Drama
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky Starring Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov

Andrei Tarkovsky’s extraordinarily accomplished debut feature ‘Ivan’s Childhood’ is a powerful and moving tale of a 12-year-old boy who vows to avenge his family’s death at the hands of the Nazis.

Striking up a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers, young Ivan becomes a spy on the eastern front.

The film was awarded the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival in 1962 and brought the Russian director international acclaim. A haunting and poetic depiction of a childhood ravaged by war.

★★★★★ “It is one of the great coups de cinéma. Unmissable” - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian