Ivan’s Childhood12A

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky | Soviet Union | 1962 | 1h 35m | Russian w/ English subtitles | Starring Nikolai Burlyayev, Nikolai Grinko, Valentin Zubkov

Determined to avenge his family’s death at the hands of the Nazis, 12-year-old Ivan joins a Russian partisan regiment as a spy on the eastern front. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Venice Golden Lion-winning debut feature is an eerie journey through the shadows of one boy’s war-ravaged youth and one of the most unforgettable depictions of the impact of war on children.

Classic Season: Directorial Debuts

Reviews

‘Tarkovsky pays full attention to the squalor and pity of war but never loses his sense of poetry.’
★★★★★
Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent

‘Audacious, coldly lucid postwar Russian classic…Unmissable’
★★★★★
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

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We showed Ivan’s Childhood between January 9, 2022 and January 12, 2022.

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Our beautiful art deco inspired auditorium can be found just off East Oxford's Cowley Road.We are open 7 days a week. We open the cinema and box office 30 minutes before the scheduled start time of each film, and the Box Office then closes 10 minutes after the film starts. We only show a few adverts – less than most cinemas – and we only play a couple of trailers, so please don’t be late as the film itself starts very close to the advertised time!

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