The Stone Guest
Single-channel video, 2017-2018, 8:20
«Oh, it’s heavy,
The stony grip of his right hand!»
Alexander Pushkin «The Little Tragedies»*
The key figure of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia was Lenin. After his death in 1924 Lenin’s image was immortalized in countless numbers of monuments in the Soviet Union and in the Soviet bloc’s countries.
In her video, the artist refers to depicted in stone image of the Revolution leader based on archival materials and found footage. There is neither living nor dead Lenin in the film; only «the stone guest» become ingrained in Soviet people lives after his death. The «birth» of each new stone Lenin is accompanied by a special ritual with speeches and festivities before a vast assembly. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the life cycle of the «stone guest» is coming to the end.
This film uses the materials of the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive (RGAKFD).
* The video is preceded by a quote from «Little Tragedies» drama («The Stone Guest» play) by Alexander Pushkin, in which a monument kills touching.
The stony grip of his right hand!»
Alexander Pushkin «The Little Tragedies»*
The key figure of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia was Lenin. After his death in 1924 Lenin’s image was immortalized in countless numbers of monuments in the Soviet Union and in the Soviet bloc’s countries.
In her video, the artist refers to depicted in stone image of the Revolution leader based on archival materials and found footage. There is neither living nor dead Lenin in the film; only «the stone guest» become ingrained in Soviet people lives after his death. The «birth» of each new stone Lenin is accompanied by a special ritual with speeches and festivities before a vast assembly. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the life cycle of the «stone guest» is coming to the end.
This film uses the materials of the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive (RGAKFD).
* The video is preceded by a quote from «Little Tragedies» drama («The Stone Guest» play) by Alexander Pushkin, in which a monument kills touching.
«Stone as Witness»
Sarah Collins, Professor, Conservatorium of Music, University of Western Australia
«…In her experimental short film The Stone Guest (Каменный гость) (2017–18), Marina Fomenko pieced together found footage of public celebrations surrounding the unveiling of statues of Lenin in the years after his death in 1924. The title of the film refers to Alexander Pushkin’s short play of the same name based on the legend of Don Juan (as part of the collection of short plays, The Little Tragedies, 1830), in which the stone statue atop the tomb of the commander whom Don Juan has murdered appears as a dinner guest and takes the libertine to the underworld. Pushkin’s Stone Guest speaks only three lines in the play — «You invited me»; «Leave her. All is finished»; and «Give me your hand» — yet its ominously silent, nodding presence functions as an undercurrent of moral conscience, just as Fomenko’s Lenin statues ensure the continuation of Lenin’s «stony grip» on the consciousness of the Soviet peoples. The film returns repeatedly to the moment of the statues’ unveiling, as the cloth covers are pulled off and left to float down majestically, revealing the figure of Lenin, again and again. The fluidity of the cloth is juxtaposed to the hardness of the stone (Figure 1), which in turn is underscored by the sparse and percussive soundtrack of the film. The historical footage shows the statues emerge as if from a chrysalis, lending them a performative quality — they seem to both commemorate and carry forward the birth of the Soviet spirit in the October 1917 revolution, seven years earlier. In their dual ability to both describe (commemorate) and to create what they describe (carry forward), the statues are performative in a manner more commonly ascribed to speech and gesture. Indeed, Deleuze and Guattari wrote in What Is Philosophy? (Qu’est-ce que la philosophie?) (1991), published in the year of the final dissolution of that same Soviet spirit, that «a monument is not the commemoration, or the celebration, of something that has happened; instead it confides to the ear of the future the persistent sensations embodying an event». These sensations — these «vibrations» or «embraces» — of revolution and of suffering, are themselves monuments-in-becoming, «like those tumuli to which each new traveller adds a stone…»
Sarah Collins “STONE AS WITNESS” in Angelaki Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
«…In her experimental short film The Stone Guest (Каменный гость) (2017–18), Marina Fomenko pieced together found footage of public celebrations surrounding the unveiling of statues of Lenin in the years after his death in 1924. The title of the film refers to Alexander Pushkin’s short play of the same name based on the legend of Don Juan (as part of the collection of short plays, The Little Tragedies, 1830), in which the stone statue atop the tomb of the commander whom Don Juan has murdered appears as a dinner guest and takes the libertine to the underworld. Pushkin’s Stone Guest speaks only three lines in the play — «You invited me»; «Leave her. All is finished»; and «Give me your hand» — yet its ominously silent, nodding presence functions as an undercurrent of moral conscience, just as Fomenko’s Lenin statues ensure the continuation of Lenin’s «stony grip» on the consciousness of the Soviet peoples. The film returns repeatedly to the moment of the statues’ unveiling, as the cloth covers are pulled off and left to float down majestically, revealing the figure of Lenin, again and again. The fluidity of the cloth is juxtaposed to the hardness of the stone (Figure 1), which in turn is underscored by the sparse and percussive soundtrack of the film. The historical footage shows the statues emerge as if from a chrysalis, lending them a performative quality — they seem to both commemorate and carry forward the birth of the Soviet spirit in the October 1917 revolution, seven years earlier. In their dual ability to both describe (commemorate) and to create what they describe (carry forward), the statues are performative in a manner more commonly ascribed to speech and gesture. Indeed, Deleuze and Guattari wrote in What Is Philosophy? (Qu’est-ce que la philosophie?) (1991), published in the year of the final dissolution of that same Soviet spirit, that «a monument is not the commemoration, or the celebration, of something that has happened; instead it confides to the ear of the future the persistent sensations embodying an event». These sensations — these «vibrations» or «embraces» — of revolution and of suffering, are themselves monuments-in-becoming, «like those tumuli to which each new traveller adds a stone…»
Sarah Collins “STONE AS WITNESS” in Angelaki Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
Awards
2020 — The Best Experimental Film, Festival of Nations, Австрия
2020 — The Best Experimental Film, Porto Femme International Film Festival
2020 — BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM, Couch Film Festival, Canada
2019 — 22nd FALUDI FILM FESTIVAL, Budapest, Hungary — 2 ПРИЗ В КАТЕГОРИИ КОРОТКОМЕТРАЖНЫЙ ДОКУМЕНТАЛЬНЫЙ ФИЛЬМ
2019 — Cinalfama Lisbon International Film Festival, Lisbon, Portugal — СПЕЦИАЛЬНОЕ УПОМИНАНИЕ ЖЮРИ
2020 — The Best Experimental Film, Porto Femme International Film Festival
2020 — BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM, Couch Film Festival, Canada
2019 — 22nd FALUDI FILM FESTIVAL, Budapest, Hungary — 2 ПРИЗ В КАТЕГОРИИ КОРОТКОМЕТРАЖНЫЙ ДОКУМЕНТАЛЬНЫЙ ФИЛЬМ
2019 — Cinalfama Lisbon International Film Festival, Lisbon, Portugal — СПЕЦИАЛЬНОЕ УПОМИНАНИЕ ЖЮРИ
Exhibitions/Festivals
2020 — GrandOFF Festival, Poland, Nominated for The Best Documentary
2020 — 9th ULTRACINEMA - CINE EXPERIMENTAL Y DE FOUND FOOTAGE, Mexico
2020 — PORTO FEMME - INT'L FILM FESTIVAL, Portugal
2020 — Festival of Nations 2020, Austria
2020 — American Documentary And Animation Film Festival and Film Fund, USA
2020 — American Documentary And Animation Film Festival and Film Fund, USA
16th BUSHO FILM FESTIVAL (http://www.busho.hu/) in Budapest, Hungary
2020 — 15th SOLE LUNA - INT'L DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL, Italy
2020, 13-17.05 — 15th German International Ethnographic Film Festival, Gettingen, Germany
2020, 9-30.04 — Master of Art Film Festival, Bulgaria
2020 — 15th EXPERIMENTS IN CINEMA FESTIVAL, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
2020 — 5th COURTS D'UN SOIR - MONTREAL INT'L SHORT FILM FESTIVAL, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2020 — 32nd FILMFEST DRESDEN
2020 — 46. Internationales Filmwochenende Würzburg, Germany
2020 — Revolutions Per Minute Festival, Boston, USA
2020 — 2nd Le Prince International Film Festival, Caracas, Venezuela
2019 — FIVA’9 International Video Art Festival, Buenos-Aires, Argentina
2019 — 22nd FALUDI FILM FESTIVAL, Budapest, Hungary - 2nd PRIZE IN THE SHORT DOCUMENTARY FILM CATEGORY
2019 — 12th FESTIVAL CINEMA ZERO, Trento, Italy
2019 — Near Nazareth Film Festival, Israel
2019 — Cinalfama Lisbon International Film Festival, Португалия (October 2019) - HONORABLE JURY MENTION
2019 — PORI FILM FESTIVAL, Finland
2019 — Amarcort Film Festival, Italy
2019 — Corti di Lunga Memoria 2019 (Long Memory Short Film Festivall), Italy
2019 — Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival, Film&Music Festival, Switzerland
2019 — ArtDocFest, Latvia-Russia
2019 — Montage of Oppositions and Absolute Convergences, Agency.Art.Ru, Moscow
2019 — Beyond Earth Film Festival, Kolkata, India
2019 — DOCfeed Festival, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
2018 — 35th The Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival
2018 — 20th FESTIVAL DES CINÉMAS DIFFÉRENTS ET EXPÉRIMENTAUX DE PARIS
2020 — 9th ULTRACINEMA - CINE EXPERIMENTAL Y DE FOUND FOOTAGE, Mexico
2020 — PORTO FEMME - INT'L FILM FESTIVAL, Portugal
2020 — Festival of Nations 2020, Austria
2020 — American Documentary And Animation Film Festival and Film Fund, USA
2020 — American Documentary And Animation Film Festival and Film Fund, USA
16th BUSHO FILM FESTIVAL (http://www.busho.hu/) in Budapest, Hungary
2020 — 15th SOLE LUNA - INT'L DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL, Italy
2020, 13-17.05 — 15th German International Ethnographic Film Festival, Gettingen, Germany
2020, 9-30.04 — Master of Art Film Festival, Bulgaria
2020 — 15th EXPERIMENTS IN CINEMA FESTIVAL, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
2020 — 5th COURTS D'UN SOIR - MONTREAL INT'L SHORT FILM FESTIVAL, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2020 — 32nd FILMFEST DRESDEN
2020 — 46. Internationales Filmwochenende Würzburg, Germany
2020 — Revolutions Per Minute Festival, Boston, USA
2020 — 2nd Le Prince International Film Festival, Caracas, Venezuela
2019 — FIVA’9 International Video Art Festival, Buenos-Aires, Argentina
2019 — 22nd FALUDI FILM FESTIVAL, Budapest, Hungary - 2nd PRIZE IN THE SHORT DOCUMENTARY FILM CATEGORY
2019 — 12th FESTIVAL CINEMA ZERO, Trento, Italy
2019 — Near Nazareth Film Festival, Israel
2019 — Cinalfama Lisbon International Film Festival, Португалия (October 2019) - HONORABLE JURY MENTION
2019 — PORI FILM FESTIVAL, Finland
2019 — Amarcort Film Festival, Italy
2019 — Corti di Lunga Memoria 2019 (Long Memory Short Film Festivall), Italy
2019 — Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival, Film&Music Festival, Switzerland
2019 — ArtDocFest, Latvia-Russia
2019 — Montage of Oppositions and Absolute Convergences, Agency.Art.Ru, Moscow
2019 — Beyond Earth Film Festival, Kolkata, India
2019 — DOCfeed Festival, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
2018 — 35th The Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival
2018 — 20th FESTIVAL DES CINÉMAS DIFFÉRENTS ET EXPÉRIMENTAUX DE PARIS