There were actually two revolutions in Russia in 1917. This short animated fragment revisits both these historic episodes, flanking them at the opening and the end with timeless scenes from the Arctic. We begin with the Sami, the nomadic tribespeople of the North, whose life has remained largely unchanged for generations. Then we cut to scenes from the revolutions in Petrograd (latterly Leningrad and St. Petersburg), visiting the Winter Palace and meeting two of the main protagonists along the way. The clip ends with a shot of an icebreaker making its way through the frozen sea. Though the film was obviously made sometime after 1917, it portrays the events of that year with such poetry and in such wonderful colours that you’ll forgive us for sneaking it into our programme.

Karl Wratschko