2014 / 170 minutes / Russian with subtitles / B&W
Directed by: Aleksei German
Print supplied by: Kino Lorber

A FREE Screening!
Thursday, June 25th, 2015
7:00pm
at The Mason O. Damon Auditorium at Buffalo Central Library

Please join us for a FREE one-night screening event of legendary Russian auteur Aleksei German’s final film—an adaptation of science fiction novel Hard to Be a God [Трудно быть богом] [2014].

Stop in early to be sure to score a FREE soft pretzel Breadhive Cooperative Bakery!

Summer 2015 Season Sponsor: Community Beer Works
Event Sponsors:
Buffalo Pug & Small Breed Rescue, Perk’s Cafe and Market & BreadHive Cooperative Bakery
Ticket Information: FREE

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library is located at
1 Lafayette Square, Buffalo, NY 14203 (please use Clinton St entrance)

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Synopsis courtesy of Kino Lorber:

A group of research scientists has been sent to the planet Arkanar, living under an oppressed regime in a period equivalent to earth’s Middle Ages. The local population is suffering a ban issued on anyone who knows how to read and write. The scientists must refrain from influencing political and historical events on Arkanar. They must work incognito, and they must remain neutral. Don Rumata, recognized by the locals as a sort of futuristic god, tries to save the local intelligentsia from their punishment. He cannot avoid taking the stance: “What would you do in God’s place?”

Adapted from the 1960s cult sci-fi novel “Hard to Be a God” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

Hard To Be a God is a project that Russian director Aleksei German had been considering since the mid-1960s. German tried to make it as his debut film as early as 1964. Instead, he made Trial on the Road in respect to Lenfilm, the historic production company for which the director worked throughout his career. The project was later approved by Goskino, the State agency responsible for organizing filmmaking in the Soviet Union, but in 1968, after the uprising in Prague, the authorization was revoked for ideological reasons. Twenty years later the director returned to the project, but decided instead to make a film that would take him a long time to complete, Khrustalyov, My Car! Ten years later, after stating “I am not interested in anything but the possibility of building a world, an entire civilization from scratch”, German committed his efforts to Hard to be a God. The film was shot between the autumn of 2000 and August 2006: it even involved the construction of castles near Prague and on the sets at Lenfilm; the shooting took so long that some of the actors died of old age; the post-production phase took over five years. German died on February 21st, 2013; the film was completed by his wife and closest collaborator, Svetlana Karmalita, and by their son Aleksei A. German.