Restored Eisenstein Film Has Berlin Premiere

On Friday, February 10, the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival will present the premiere of the reconstructed version of OCTOBER, a lost classic Russian silent film by iconic filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra will perform the original score to the 1928 classic, as composed by Edmund Meisel. The film traces historical developments from the Russian Revolution of 1917, and was commissioned by the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. Shot at original locations, Eisenstein commemorates the fight of Petrograd’s population and Lenin’s former comrades-in-arms, who fell out of favor by 1928. This shift in the political climate led to the film’s censorship and its complete disappearance from cinemas after premiering at the Bolshoi Theatre on March 14, 1928. The screening is a Berlinale Special presentation and part of this year’s Retrospective, “The Red Dream Factory”.

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