IDOLS BEHIND ALTARS

Special Features: Silent Movie Day Presentation | FREE for Silver Cinema Club members!

Famed Russian revolutionary film director Sergei Eisenstein traveled to Mexico in December 1930 to experience firsthand its “geographical, ethnological, cultural and historical diversity” and to make the feature film known to the world as ¡QUE VIVA MÉXICO! After shooting 200,000 feet of 35mm film footage, drawing hundreds of outlandish sketches and writing volumes of theoretical texts, he departed in April 1932 without a completed film. We will never know what Eisenstein might have edited given the chance — perhaps he did not know himself — but we can show you what he actually directed and shot in Mexico. IDOLS BEHIND ALTARS is a two-screen rearrangement of images from Jay Leyda’s 1955 genre-breaking EISENSTEIN’S MEXICAN FILM: EPISODES FOR STUDY, now newly restored and featuring a new score by Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky. (Note adapted from Kino Lorber.)

DIR Sergei Eisenstein. Soviet Union, b&w, 54 min. NOT RATED

2K digital restoration of 35mm film
Conceived and shot by Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov, Eduard Tissé (1930-32)
Film selections by Jay Leyda (1955-57) and Bruce Posner (2016)
New music: Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky
Courtesy: Filmmakers Showcase, Film Video Digital, Gosfilmofond of Russia, Kino Classics
Contents of Special Edition © 2026 Bruce Posner
Music by Paul D. Miller (p) Subliminal Kid Publishing (BMI)

Run Time: 54 Minutes

Opening Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Genre: History

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