SPECIAL SCREENING: Good Luck

A psyhodelic portrait of hope and sacrifice in a time of global economic turmoil, filmed between a state-owned large-scale underground mine in the post-war state of Serbia and an illegal mining collective in the tropical heat of Suriname.

Good Luck

USA | 2017 | 143 min
Ben Russell
Moscow Premiere
Beginning with a 600-meter descent into the depths of the earth, Good Luck shines a flashlight onto the human face of labor in the time-warp'd working conditions of an underground state-owned mine in Serbia. The hiss of oxygen cuts through the diesel rumble, the walls of the office vibrate with explosions two levels below; war-torn and half-forgotten, these miners' physical struggle finds its mirror a continent away - in the tropical heat of an illegal Surinamese gold mine. The water pumps roar under the blinding sun; silver liquid rolls across the hand of a Saramaccan Maroon as he adds mercury to dirt in a never-ending search for gold. Formed between dark and light, cold and heat, North and South, Good Luck immerses its viewer in the precarious natural and social environments of two distinct labor groups so as to better understand the bonds that men share. In a time of global economic turmoil, here is the human foundation of capital, revealed.

Ben Russell


Ben Russell (b.1976, USA) is an artist and filmmaker whose work lies at the intersection of ethnography and psychedelia. His films and installations are in direct conversation with the history of the documentary image, providing a time-based inquiry into trance phenomena and evoking the research of Jean Rouch, Maya Deren and Michael Snow, among others. Russell received a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship, a FIPRESCI International Critics Prize (IFFR 2009) for his first feature film Let Each One Go Where He May, and was a participating artist in documenta 14. His second feature film,A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness (co-directed with Ben Rivers), premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2013. Curatorial projects include Magic Lantern (Providence, USA, 2005-2007), BEN RUSSELL (Chicago, USA, 2009-2011), and Hallucinations (Athens, Greece, 2017). He currently resides in Los Angeles.
September 28
19:00
DOCUMENTARY FILM CENTER, 18+
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September 30
12:00
«GARAGE» MUSEUM, 18+
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PROGRAMME 2018