Week 4 Screening - Dersu Uzala (1975) w/ Slavic Languages Club

For week 4, we're collaborating with Slavic Lanuages Club and screening Dersu Uzala. 

Based on Vladimir Arsenyev's 1923 memoir of the same name, Dersu Uzala follows Arsenyev's mapping expeditions into the Russian far east alongside his eponymous guide. After meeting Uzala, a Nanai hunter, Arsenyev convinces him to guide the expedition. Against the backdrop of the harsh, unyielding, and beautiful landscape, the two leads form a strong bond of camaraderie.
Headed by highly acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa, who initially wanted to adapt the memoir over 20 years earlier, Dersu Uzala was the only non-Japanese language production of his career. Produced in the Soviet Union after Kurosawa was given the offer, the film was nominated as the Soviet selection for the Academy Award's best foreign langauge film, one of several awards it would go on to win.

Watch the trailer here.