CF’s International Film Series continues with Tarkovsky’s debut feature, ‘Ivan’s Childhood’

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Posted February 18, 2022 | By James Blevins
james@ocalagazette.com

The College of Central Florida (CF) Ira Holmes International Film Series continues its 60^th anniversary season with Russian auteur filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s first feature film, “Ivan’s Childhood,” on Tuesday, Feb. 22.

Released in 1962, the film “is a poetic journey through the shards and shadows of one boy’s war-ravaged youth,” according to The Criterion Collection’s website synopsis of the film, while moving “back and forth between [the] traumatic realities of World War II and [the] serene moments of family life before the conflict began.”

Cinematically, the website continued, it remains one of the most haunting and notable depictions of the impact of war on children committed to celluloid, winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1962.

In an interview conducted at the time of the film’s release and collected in a 2006 book of filmmaker interviews by John Gianvito, Tarkovsky stated that in making the film he wanted to “convey all [his] hatred of war,” and that he chose childhood “because it is what contrasts most with war.”

Tarkovsky would go on to direct six more feature films before passing in 1986: “Andrei Rublev” (1966); “Solaris” (1972); “Mirror” (1975); “Stalker” (1979); “Nostalghia” (1983); and “The Sacrifice” (1986).

To view the film’s trailer, click here. [Online only.]

“Ivan’s Childhood” will be shown at 2 p.m. at the Appleton Museum of Art, located at 4333 E. Silver Springs Blvd., and at 7 p.m. at the CF Ocala Campus, located at 3001 S.W. College Road, Building 8, Room 110.

Special guest Peggy Dates will introduce the film at its 2 p.m. showing. An extensive world traveler and international film screening devotee, Dates has assisted the film series for more than nine years and is integral to the series’ success, said a CF press release.

On Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 12:30 p.m., Del Jacobs, author of “Interrogating the Image: Movies and the World of Film and Television” and “Revisioning Film Traditions: The Pseudo-Documentary and the New Western,” will host an online film talk and Q&A session on Zoom.

Future films in the series, all from the year 1962, when Professor Holmes first began the long-running program, include:

• “Boccaccio ’70,” directed by Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti, showing on March 8, with a film talk by Dr. Silvo Gaggi on March 9
• “To Kill a Mockingbird,” directed by Robert Mulligan, showing on March 29, with a film talk by Dr. Gilbert B. Rodman on March 30

A bonus 1962 film shorts festival, featuring Chris Marker’s “La Jetée,” Louis Malle’s “Vive le Tour” and more, is scheduled for April 12.

Films at the Ocala campus are free and open to the public, while films at the Appleton are free to all museum and film series members. Nonmembers must pay museum admission.

Be advised that some films in the series may contain mature content.

For more details, visit CF.edu/filmseries.