Battleship Potemkin changed cinema history forever. Commissioned to mark the 20th anniversary of the failed 1905 revolution, Sergei Eisenstein’s masterpiece is a vibrant paean to collective heroism. From the moment of its 1925 premiere at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, the film was hailed as a masterpiece and Eisenstein’s theories of montage became aesthetic tools for filmmakers everywhere. But almost from the beginning, Potemkin was the object of censorship and suffered decades of re-cuts and re-translations that blunted its energy and originality—which makes it a special delight to present the film in its definitive restoration, completed in 2007.

Underwritten by Friends of the Silent Film Festival

Special support provided by Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation and the Consulate General of Sweden in San Francisco

Musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble

Copresented by Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive and SFFilm

Restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek

Presented in 35mm

Children under the age of 10 are admitted free.