ANDREY RUBLYOV

In eight “novellas” plus a prologue, the film relates the life and suffering of the icon painter and monk Andrey Rublyov in early 15th-century Russia, a country ravaged by poverty, plague and bloody violence. Rublyov’s aspiration to produce art that might serve God and the people comes into conflict with the traditional understanding of the icon. After he kills a soldier who is about to rape a mentally handicapped girl during a raid by the Tartars, he takes an oath of silence and vows never to paint again. Only the passionate work of a young bellmaker persuades him to break his silence and return to his art. goEast screens a new subtitled print of Tarkovsky’s classic.