Hail, Mary!
The SPbU Representative Office in Spain cordially invites you to an online lecture by Natalia Semenova on the making of the film "Hail, Mary!" by Iosif Kheifits (Lenfilm, 1970). The film starred a number of great actors Valeri Zolotukhin, Vitaly Solomin and Ada Rohovtseva, who played the main character — the Soviet spy Maria. The role brought her widespread popularity and the Best Actress award at the 1971 Moscow Film Festival.
Based on the life of Soviet spy Maria Fortus, the film is a melodramatic biopic.
During the lecture we will try to reconstruct the history of the making of the film, on which the director Iosif Kheifits worked together with the writer Grigory Baklanov.
We will discuss the image of Spain presented in the film, the city that served as the backdrop for the Barcelona scenes, and the impact of the film on the life of Angel Gutierrez, a teacher at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts — GITIS.
Lecturer
Natalia Semenova is Associate Professor in the History of Russian Literature Department at St Petersburg University. A researcher on Soviet and post-Soviet theatre and contemporary Russian literature, she is the author of more than 50 research publications. Natalia Semenova’s research interests include the study of memory in relation to culture (memory studies), the analysis of various theatrical practices, and the history of Soviet literature and cinema. Natalia Semenova is the organiser of the SPbU student seminar "Cinema|Theatre|Text", a member of the programme committee of the Ludmila Verbitskaya International Philological Conference, an archivist and a researcher in residence at Gosfilmofond (2023).
The lecture is part of the 300th anniversary celebrations of the Russia’s first university.
The meeting will be held online in Russian with simultaneous interpreting into Spanish.