Lost lessons of Andrei Tarkovsky

Following the extraordinary discovery of a 90-hour recording of film lessons by Andrei Tarkovsky in an archive belonging to one of his closest collaborators, the Elías Querejeta Film School is collaborating with the Tarkovsky Institution in a research, restoration and dissemination project centred around these recordings. The film lessons recorded by Andrei Tarkovsky at the Moscow Film School were believed to run for seven hours, constituting a brief yet extraordinary set of teaching materials that have been translated into several different languages (they were published in Spanish in Errata Naturae, under the title Atrapad la vida). However, a recent investigation led to the discovery of hitherto unknown material totalling around 90 hours of sound recordings. The material was found in the personal archive of Masha Chugunova, who accompanied Tarkovsky for years during his classes and talks.

A project has been launched at the Tarkovsky Institute, run by Andrei Tarkovsky junior, to research, restore and disseminate all this treasure, that the EQZE is taking part in as a film research centre. EQZE is the only institution in Spain that is taking part in the project.

In short, the materials that have been discovered are audio recordings from 1975 to 1981 and include:

1. Two series of film classes by Andrei Tarkovsky, given as part of the advanced courses for film directors and scriptwriters in Moscow in 1977 and in 1981 (40 hours approximately).
2. Numerous meetings with filmgoers in the cities of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), Dnepropetrovsk, Kazan, Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Novosibirsk, Riga and Tomsk in the period from 1976 to 1981, (another 40 hours approximately).
3. Professional meetings between Tarkovsky and filmmakers from Estonia (Tallinn, 1975), with the protagonists of Stalker (Tallinn, 1975), with film technicians and young filmmakers from Mosfilm (Moscow, 1980), young directors from the Filmmakers’ Union of the USSR (Moscow, 1981), (about 10 hours)

In these classes, meetings and talks, Tarkovski covers an extremely broad range of arguments about the filmmaker’s profession, aesthetic, ethical, philosophical or psychological questions... interspersed with continual reflections of his own related to a variety of subjects regarding film theory and practice, questions about international culture, its relationship to the development of civilisation...

EQZE has organised two seminars focusing on this material. The first, held on 6 December 2017, analysed the creative process behind Mirror (Zerkalo, 1975), and the relationship between film and other related arts such as painting, literature and music. The second, held on 12 May 2018, explored different notes and observations made by the Tarkovsky in relation to the works of other filmmakers, such as Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Otar Iosseliani, Grigori Kozintsev, the Lumière brothers, Sergei Parajanov and Luis Buñuel.

Research team:
Masha Chugonova, Andréi Andréievich Tarkovski, José Manuel Mouriño

Related institutions:
VGIK, Istituto Internazionale Andreij Tarkovskij, Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola

Timeframe:
July 2017 - December 202

Research line:
Transmission and teaching of cinema

Links
Pictures from the first session
Pictures from the second session
Video essay made by Cristina Álvarez and Adrian Martin for the second session