Technofutures Film Series: Aelita: Queen of Mars

Explore the intersection of avant-garde art and early film in the Technofutures: Science Fiction Film and Modernist Design film series, showcasing three landmark sci-fi films produced in the 1920s in France, Germany, and Soviet Russia. These thrilling silent masterpieces feature ambitious art design to match the global (and even interstellar) scope of the stories they tell. Selected by Diane Wei Lewis, assistant professor of Film and Media Studies in Arts & Sciences, the films highlight the influence of modern art—Cubism, Expressionism, and Constructivism—on film and set design. Lewis will introduce each of the films, which will also be accompanied by a musical score.

In Aelita: Queen of Mars (dir. Yakov Protazanov, USSR, 1924), a Soviet engineer builds a spaceship to find the Martian queen who has been observing him from her planet; to his surprise, he discovers that Mars is a contradictory society with highly advanced technology but stark social inequalities. This interplanetary adventure film features Constructivist costumes, set designs, and props by painter Alexandra Exter, film designer Sergei Kovlovsky, and theater artist Isaak Rabinovich.

Free and open to the public. Complimentary medium popcorn for Kemper Art Museum members.