ABSTRACT
How is religion portrayed in Russian films? How have these portrayals evolved over the last century? To what extent is it possible to trace a return to a more positive representation of religion in Russian moviemaking? In order to understand the place of religion in contemporary Russian films, it is useful to consider how cinema has evolved in Russia over the last century by considering the answers to these questions. While another chapter in this volume explores the place of the holy fool in Russian cinema, 1 in this more broadly focused essay I chart the complex and changing relations between film and religion in Russia since the earliest days of cinema. 2 To understand the relation between religion and film in Russia, it is also useful to take into account the changing political context in which the films have been produced since the dominant themes and the content have often been heavily influenced by the political mood. I will therefore consider the interactions between religion and film in Czarist Russia, then in Soviet Russia and, more briefly, in post-Soviet Russia. 3
