HARD TO BE A GOD

On the planet Arkanar, history has become stuck in the Middle Ages. Thirty scientists from Earth observe the goings-on; they know how things could progress, but are not permitted to intervene. One of them lives there as Don Rumata, said to be the illegitimate son of a god. When the scholar Budach is abducted by the First Minister Don Reba, whose militia, the “Greys”, has scribes and scientists murdered, Rumata sets out to find him – and comes up against the limit of what an observer can bear. In “Hard to Be a God” (Russia, 2013), Alexei German filmed the novel by the Strugatsky brothers that he had wanted to make all his life; the last fifteen years of his work were devoted to this project alone.

German died in February 2013; his wife Svetlana Karmalita and his son Alexei German Jr. completed the film. What emerged is a three-hour black-and-white panorama of mud, rain and crowding, in which the camera is constantly obstructed by bodies and objects. It premiered at the Rome Film Festival in 2013, where German was honoured posthumously for his life’s work; Rotterdam followed in 2014. “Hard to Be a God” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2014 in the Russland Spezial section.

Shown at the 2014 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2014 · Film Archive