Screening Dates: Thursday, November 13, 2025, 8:00 p.m. / Thursday, January 8, 2026 8:00 p.m.

 

Director: Sergei Eisenstein

Screenplay: Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein, Ilya Kravchunovsky, Valerian Pletnev

Cast: Maksim Shtraukh, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Mikhail Gomorov, Yakov Strongin, I. Ivanov, Ivan Klyukvin, Aleksandr Antonov, Yudif Glizer, Anatoliy Kuznetsov, Vera Yanukova, Vladimir Uralskiy

 

 

In his first feature film, Eisenstein narrates the factory workers’ strike through the rhythm of the masses rather than individuals. When the mechanical order of the work flow meets the collective movement of human bodies, montage transforms from a theory into a tangible energy. Images of animals, machine gears, and close-ups of faces reveal the invisible connections between exploitation and resistance. As the camera moves from workshops to streets, the cuts accelerate the rhythm; it is the images themselves, not words or slogans, which organize.

 

Strike establishes the idea of collective heroism while also transforming cinema’s political sensitivity into an aesthetic quest; it draws a vivid line between propaganda and experimentation. The atmosphere of rapid industrialization and organization in the 1920s finds a simple but striking echo in the film. It succeeds in conveying to the audience the desire to act together against the cold logic of order and the excitement of courage against harsh reality. It is like a sketchbook for the political cinema that will flourish in its wake; each shot is as idea-laden as the narrative.