The Different Faces of Sergei Eisenstein

59 min. | color and b/w | in German only

A film by Oksana Bulgakowa & Dietmar Hochmuth

Sergei Eisenstein (1898 – 1948) is celebrated either as the last Leonardo da Vinci of modernity or attacked as Faustus, who made a pact with the devil. Whichever is the case, neither friends nor foes are able to resist the powerful draw of Eisenstein’s work. He was a person of complexity who was understood in very different ways: as a generous cosmopolitan and a stingy hermit, a cynic and yet a highly sensitive, vulnerable being. The film deals with a number of phases in Eisenstein’s life, and tries to get away from the orthodox image of him by using new material to shed a different light on his biography.