The New Moscow

Yesterday I drove to London to pick up two hefty black boxes which contain The Mobile Cinema, starring at the Hare and Hounds this Tuesday. The word 'Mobile' is used quite loosely here. Although Romana Schmalisch, the artist who created it, has carted this contraption around Europe I imagine she risked life and hernia to do so.

The inspiration for The Mobile Cinema came from The New Moscow, a 1938 urban planning comedy made by Aleksandr Medvedkin. It tells the tale of an idealistic young designer who treks into the capital from Siberia to present his utopian model for a new city, a table-top diorama with intricate moving parts which have a tendency to malfunction at the wrong moment. Earlier Medvedkin had been involved in the kino-train movement, when revolutionary ideals were transported across the USSR using trains converted into cinemas and film production units, and all of this history and plenty more besides has been stirred into the mix of Schmalisch's performance.

The Mobile Cinema can also be seen throughout June in Nottingham, Norwich and all over Scotland.