Ostrov Mjertvych (Island of the Dead)

"The lsland of the Dead" is a surreal fantasy. An epic collage of pre-Russian revolutionary melodramas, documentary footage dating from World War I and rare shorts !from the early twenties. Devoted to the memory of the beautiful Vera Kholodnaya, the superstar of Russian silent films who died in 1919 at age 35, this film is a montage of modemism, futurism, expressionism and constructivism. Revered like a Sarah Bernhardt, Kholodnaya was the muse for filmmakers Evgeny Bauer, Tchardynin, Uralsky and Viskovsky. Kovalov, sees the actress as an integral part of early 20th-century Russian cultural mythology.