MATTERS OF LIFE,
DEATH AND ART
by Leslie Camhi Village Voice, 09 Jan. 2007
FROM SHIVAH TO SHOAH, THE 16TH ANNUAL JEWISH
FILM FEST DOESN’T SHY
AWAY FROM THE BIG QUESTIONS
...Art is also the driving force behind Sonia, director Lucy Kostelanetz's
engaging and visually inventive (if over-long) documentary about
the turbulent life of her great-aunt Sonia Dymshitz-Tolstaya. Born
into a wealthy Jewish family in czarist Russia, Sonia remade herself
as a scion of Russia's artistic avant-garde—first as an expatriate
painter in Paris, then as a collaborator with Vladmir Tatlin, an
artworker in the service of the Revolution, later harnessing her
talents to Stalin's Five-Year Plans. The purges of the 1930s and
the siege of Leningrad during
World War II dimmed, but could not put out, Sonia's aesthetic ardor.
Photo: Sonia standing in the middle of her siblings, above
her brother and mother, 1903.
CONTACT:
LUCY KOSTELANETZ
contact@soniathemovie.com
© 2010 Lucy Kostelanetz Productions, LLC
