SOROKIN TRIP, documentary movie
Vladimir Sorokin (Norma /The Norm, Goluboe Salo / Blue Salo), Den' Oprichnika / Day of the Oprichnik) is a man who blew up the Soviet literary tradition and built his own world on its ruins. SOROKIN TRIP is the first documentary about the most significant writer and dramatist in modern Russian literature. Sorokin for the first time talks about his own life with utmost frankness; his childhood in a worker's settlement near Moscow, his life in the workshops of underground artists, the persecution he suffered at the hands of the KGB and pro-Kremlin youth organizations, and his love for Russian literature and cosmic cold.
Filmed on location in Moscow and Berlin.
Presented in Russian w/ English subtitles.
Running time: 91 minutes
About Vladimir Sorokin
Vladimir Sorokin is known for writing postmodern fiction with elements of satire, the Soviet past, and dystopian futures plus sex, scatology, and violence. Sorokin began writing before perestroika, when his underground work could not be officially published. His books began to reach Western readers, in French, German, and English during the 1980s, through translations of novels including The Queue, The Norm, and Marina’s Thirtieth Love. Sorokin’s writings in the post-Soviet period include 1999’s Blue Lard, which created tremendous controversy by depicting Stalin and Khrushchev in compromising positions, resulting in pornography charges and an infamous toilet incident, in which protesters dumped copies of Sorokin’s books into a giant commode in central Moscow. His 2006 Day of the Oprichnik, with a setting
that combines futuristic technology with the oprichina of Ivan the Terrible’s day, is distinctly political, and his The Blizzard, from 2010, is a short metaphysical novel that is distinctly literary, with references to Russian classics. His Manaraga, which won the 2017 NOSE Award (jury and reader prizes), combines a strange future with numerous literary references by depicting a book’n’grill chef who travels the world cooking delicacies over fires fueled by books. Sorkokin has also written plays and screenplays, and wrote a controversial libretto for the opera Rosenthal’s Children at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater.
Creative Team
Director Ilya Belov
Director of photography Mikhail Krichman
Written by Anton Zhelnov
Co-written by Yuri Saprykin
Press
“Controversy chases the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin the way a dog chases a stick.”, Ken Kalfus, NY Times
“Sorokin’s fiction both draws upon and stands up to the farcical situations he observes in real Russian life, which are often far stranger than anything most novelists could concoct.”, Vladislav Davidzon, Book Forum
From a Novelist, Shock Treatment for Mother Russia, Ellen Barry, NY Times
Jamey Gambrell on Vladimir Sorokin, Nicole Rudick, Paris Review
Review: In Vladimir Sorokin’s ‘The Blizzard,’ a Doctor’s Long and Strange Trip, Michico Kakatani, NY Times
Review: The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin, Masha Gessen, NY Times
Upcoming Screenings
There are currently no scheduled screenings for "Sorokin Trip"