Andrei Tarkovsky (1932 -1986) is a renowned Russian filmmaker whose work, despite an output of only seven feature films in twenty years, has had a profound influence on international cinema. Famous for languid pacing, long takes, dreamlike imagery, spiritual depth and philosophical allegories, most of his films have gained cult status among cineastes and are often included in various kinds of ranking polls and charts dedicated to the "best movies ever made." Thus, for example, the British Film Institute's "50 Greatest Films of All Time" poll conducted for the film magazine Sight & Sound in 2012 honors three of Tarkovsky's films: Andrei Rublev (1966) is ranked at No. 26, Mirror (1974) at No. 19, and Stalker (1979) at No. 29. Beginning with the late 1980, Tarkovsky's highly complex cinema has continuously attracted scholarly and critical attention in film studies by generating countless hermeneutic challenges and possibilities for film scholars. Almost all intellectual vogues and methodologies in humanities, whether it's feminism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, diaspora studies or film-philosophy, have left their interpretative trace on the reception of his work.

This ReFocus anthology on Andrei Tarkovsky invites chapter proposals of 200-400 words that would take yet another look at the director's legacy from interdisciplinary perspectives. Essays may focus on individual films or themes and motifs that pervade his body of work. Possible areas of inquiry could include but are not limited to:

  • Tarkovsky and film-philosophy (e.g. Bergson, Heidegger, Levinas, Deleuze, Žižek, etc.)
  • Tarkovsky and his unresolved Oedipal drama
  • Tarkovsky's direct engagement with literature, music, painting, etc.
  • Tarkovsky's film theory
  • Tarkovsky and space/architecture
  • Tarkovsky and feminism
  • Tarkovsky and religion
  • Tarkovsky and exile
  • Filmmakers who influenced Tarkovsky (e.g. Dovzhenko, Eisenstein, Bresson, Bergman, Fellini, etc.)
  • Filmmakers influenced by Tarkovsky (e.g. Sokurov, von Trier, Soderbergh, Ceylan, etc.)
  • Tarkovsky's hagiographic status in contemporary Russia
  • Your suggestion

Essays included in the refereed anthology will be of approximately 5,000 to 8,000 words, referenced in Chicago endnote style.

The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky will be one of the scholarly editions to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press in a new companion series dedicated to international film directors. Series editors are Robert Singer, Ph.D. and Gary D. Rhodes, Ph.D.

Please send your CV and abstract to stoymentsev[at]fsu.edu (Sergei Toymentsev is Postdoctoral Fellow in Slavic Studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Florida State University).