Double bill of silent features from the 1920s. 'Battleship Potemkin' (1925), masterpiece of Russian silent film pioneer Sergei M. Eisenstein, is a dramatised account of the naval mutiny and street riots at the sea port of Odessa that sparked off the 1905 Russian Revolution. When the crew of the Potemkin protests after being given rotten meat as rations, the captain responds by ordering the execution of the dissidents. Outrage at this injustice quickly ignites and the townspeople have soon surrounded the harbour in a mass demonstration - but the scene gives way to tragedy and brutality as the authorities move in to quell the uprising. In British documentary 'Drifters' (1929), which was influenced by and originally screened alongside 'Battleship Potemkin' in the UK, director John Grierson looks at the North Sea herring fleets and the men who worked them. The film pays particular attention to how the once traditional industry has become a more modern enterprise.

A second collection of films by Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. 'Bezhin Meadow' (1937) is based on the life of Pavik Morosov, a pioneer who was killed by his 'Old Russia' father for being an enemy of the people. 'Alexander Nevsky' (1938), Eisenstein's first sound film, tells the story of the legendary hero who led the Russian Army against a German invasion in the 13th century. The film was made just before World War 2 and the inevitable onslaught between Russia and Hitler's Germany. The authenticity of the battle scenes was vouchsafed by Eisenstein being allowed unlimited access to the real Russian army. Eisenstein's epic production comprising 'Ivan the Terrible Part I' (1944) and 'Ivan the Terrible Part II: The Boyars' Plot (1958) tells the story of one of Russia's greatest and most ruthless leaders. The first part chronicles Ivan (Nikolai Cherkassov)'s childhood, coronation, marriage and illness. Eisenstein juxtaposes striking imagery with a stirring score by Prokofiev. In Part 2, Ivan continues his bloody struggle with the Boyars and the Church. Stalin, initially a supporter of the project, objected to Eisenstein's depiction of the Russian leader in the second part. The film was not released until 1958, and only a fragment of Part 3 exists.

Sergei M. Eisenstein directs this historical, silent Russian drama centred on the naval mutiny and street riots at the seaport of Odessa that sparked the 1905 Russian Revolution. When the crew of the Battleship Potemkin protests after being given rotten meat as rations, the captain responds by ordering the execution of the dissidents. Outrage at this injustice quickly ignites and the townspeople soon surround the harbour in a mass demonstration - but the scene gives way to tragedy and brutality as the authorities move in to quell the uprising.