MOSCOW.- The exhibition is based on photos and interviews made this summer on the Swedish island Gotland, where The Sacrifice, the last Andrey Tarkovsky’s film, was shot 30 years ago. A special programme of film screenings, lectures and discussions will accompany the exhibition.

“Our exhibition is a tribute to one of the greatest directors in the history of Russian cinema 30 years after his death, as well as homage to the Gotlanders who took part in the shooting of the film,” said journalist, photographer and author of the project Victoria Ivleva.

Three decades after The Sacrifice had received the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, photographer Victoria Ivleva (Russia, Moscow) and researcher Ulla Tillgren (Stockholm, Sweden) managed to find the inhabitants of Gotland who worked on the film alongside the film crew: the amateur actor, the embroiderer, the director, the film consultant , the waitresses, the hotel manager, the journalist, the key grip, the cooks, the chimney builder, the cleaning women and the executive producer – all of those who contributed to the success of the film in their way.

«In Närsholmen we found the place where the famous house in the film stood and the field where the ambulance drivers caught Erland Josephson. We were lucky enough to find the overgrown path that Allan Edwall rode his bicycle on. We saw the place where Sven Nykvist’s camera stood during the first house fire. Most of the people we met had not been there for more than 30 years, and no one had ever asked them about the film the Russian director shot on Gotland. They were all invited to the premier, and many thought the film was convo¬luted and hard to understand. One remembered falling asleep and another one remembered having left the cinema hall. Others loved the dreamy atmosphere of the film. Now, after 30 years, they all wanted to see the film again”.

Victoria Ivleva
Russian photographer and journalist. She was born in Leningrad, lives in Moscow. Studied journalism in Moscow State University. Worked in many conflict zones and cooperated with Russian and foreign editions, won Golden Eye Award (World Press Photo) for her series made inside the destroyed reactor of the Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant, German Gerd Bucerius Prize, the Russian Union of Journalists Prize, twice nominated for Andrei Sakharov’s Prize.