Circus by Grigory Alexandrov

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4.00 pm, 8 November, Sunday

A melodramatic comedy based on Under the Big Top by I. Ilf and E. Petrov. Set in the mid-30s, Marion Dikson, an American circus artist, flees the USA and the racism that she has endured for having a mixed-race son. Finding refuge and acceptance in the USSR, as her career takes off in a new, successful show, she meets new friends and falls in love. Ultimately she decides to stay in the USSR forever and the film climaxes with various Soviet ethnic groups singing a lullaby to her baby, in a display of Soviet cosmopolitanism.

This film is an extraordinary combination of Busby Berkeley-style choreography, stunts and classic songs with a clear anti-US, agit-prop message. Many of the songs became instant Soviet classics. Chillingly, after Stalins anti-semitic campaign, the Yiddish verse was cut from lullaby sequence in the film. However, it was shown in its glorious entirety again after 1991.