Film: Potamkin

A world-renowned critic and committed political activist, Harry Alan Potamkin died from complications of starvation in 1933. In the criticism he left behind, he argued for film’s revolutionary potential.

Canadian director Stephen Broomer excavates Potamkin’s thoughts and experience in Potamkin (2017; 67 min.), reworking films that the critic discussed to build something like a found-footage biography. Manipulated scenes from Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1927) and other films give, in Broomer’s words, “an impression of erupting consciousness,” just as their threatened disintegration mirrors the tragic end of Potamkin’s short life.

Stephen Broomer is an experimental filmmaker, preservationist, historian, educator, programmer, and publisher. His 16mm films and digital videos have screened at festivals such as the San Francisco Cinematheque’s Crossroads Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. He has presented solo programs at venues such as the Canadian Film Institute, Mono No Aware (Brooklyn), the Pleasure Dome (Toronto), and the MassArt Film Society (Boston). In 2014, Broomer’s films were the subject of a book-length collection of essays published by the Canadian Film Institute, The Transformable Moment: The Films of Stephen Broomer.

This screening is co-presented by the Harvard Art Museums and Balagan Films, a year-round film series based in Boston that showcases avant-garde, experimental, and otherwise marginalized works.

Co-sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.

The screening will take place in Menschel Hall, Lower Level. Please enter the museums via the entrance on Broadway.

Free admission

Complimentary parking available in the Broadway Garage, 7 Felton Street, Cambridge.

Support for this program is provided by the Richard L. Menschel Endowment Fund.