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The Role (Russian: Роль Rol) is a 2013 Russian drama film directed by Konstantin Lopushansky and starring Maksim Sukhanov. It tells the story of an actor who, influenced by the ideas of symbolism and the Silver Age, takes on the greatest role of his life – the role of another man (his doppelgänger), a revolutionary leader in the newly established Soviet Russia.
Based on true incidents in the lives of Russia’s symbolists
spacetime coordinates: 1892–1973 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a 2004 documentary film directed by Jessica Yu about American outsider artist Henry Darger.
An obscure janitor during his life, Darger is known for the posthumous discovery of his elaborate 15,145-page fantasy manuscript entitled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred watercolor paintings and other drawings illustrating the story.
The film’s style is atypical of a documentary. Because there are only three known photographs of Darger, and because of his reclusive lifestyle, the film is mostly a narrated biographical account, accompanied by animated versions of events from his magnum opus, which is also surveyed in detail. Interviews with his few neighbors and other acquaintances are included.
In the last entry in his diary, he wrote: “January 1, 1971. I had a very poor nothing like Christmas. Never had a good Christmas all my life, nor a good new year, and now… I am very bitter but fortunately not revengeful, though I feel should be how I am…”
The Edge (Russian: Край) is a 2010 Russian drama film directed by Alexei Uchitel.
spacetime coordinates: 1840s in the Sierra Nevadas // the Mexican-American War
Ravenous is a 1999 Czech-American black comedy horror-suspense film directed by Antonia Bird and starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeffrey Jones and David Arquette. The film revolves around cannibalism in 1840s California and some elements bear similarities to the story of the Donner Party and that of Alferd Packer. Screenwriter Ted Griffin lists Packer’s story, as recounted in a couple of paragraphs of Dashiell Hammett‘s The Thin Man, as one of his inspirations for Carlyle’s character. The film’s darkly humorous and ironic take on its gruesome subject matter have led some to label it simply as a black comedy or a satire. The film’s unique score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn generated a significant amount of attention.
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the wendigo (Algonquian folklore)
spacetime coordinates: Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s
Stranger Things is an American science fiction-horror web television series created, written, directed and co-executive produced by the Duffer Brothers The Duffer Brothers developed the series as a mix of investigative drama alongside supernatural elements with childlike sensibilities, establishing its time frame in the 1980s and creating a homage to pop culture of that decade. Several themes and directorial aspects were inspired and aesthetically informed by the works of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, and Stephen King, among others.
The official poster for the series was created by Kyle Lambert. It was done in an art style inspired by acclaimed poster/album artwork artist Drew Struzan, who has created official posters for Star Wars (1977), “Indiana Jones,” Back to the Future (1985), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and several others.
demogorgon (phantom demon)
spacetime coordinates: 1985 > 1968 > 1932
the town of Nebelsbad / Lutz in the former Republic of Zubrowka (the farthest eastern boundary of the Europen continent)
The Grand Budapest Hotel is an 2014 comedy film written and directed by Wes Anderson, from a story by Anderson and Hugo Guinness, inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig. The narrative takes the form of a story within a story within a story.
Ida (pronounced [ˈida]) is a 2013 Polish drama film directed by Paweł Pawlikowski and written by Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Set in Poland in 1962, it is about a young woman on the verge of taking vows as a Catholic nun. Orphaned as an infant during the German occupation of World War II, she must now meet her aunt. The former Communist state prosecutor and only surviving relative tells her that her parents were Jewish. The two women embark on a road trip into the Polish countryside to learn the fate of their family.
Called a “compact masterpiece” and an “eerily beautiful road movie”, the film has also been said to “contain a cosmos of guilt, violence and pain”, even if certain historical events (German occupation of Poland, the Holocaust and Stalinism) remain unsaid: “none of this is stated, but all of it is built, so to speak, into the atmosphere: the country feels dead, the population sparse”. ( wiki )
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