THE SACRIFICE aka OFFRET

Year: 1986
UK: Artificial Eye
Cast: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Valerie Mairesse, Allan Edwall, Gudún S Gisladóttir, Sven Wollter, Valerie Mairesse, Filippa Franzen, Per Källman, Tommy Nordahl
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Countries: Sweden / France
Language: Swedish (English subtitles)
UK: 145 mins
UK Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: 7 December 2007 (Limited Re-release)
UK Distributor

Synopsis

Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of one of the undisputed masters of world cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky's final film is a visionary masterpiece and it unfolds in the hours before a nuclear holocaust.

Erland Josephson, in an award-winning role, plays Alexander, a retired actor, who is celebrating his birthday with family and friends when a crackly TV announcement warns of imminent nuclear catastrophe. Alexander makes a promise to God that he will sacrifice all he holds dear, if the disaster can be averted.

The next day dawns and, as if in a dream, everything is restored to normality. But Alexander must now keep his vow.

Among many other awards, THE SACRIFICE won the coveted Grand Prix (Special Jury Prize) at Cannes in 1986, the same year that Tarkovsky died of cancer in Paris at the age of 54.

Born in Russia in 1932, Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky's first feature was Ivan's CHILDHOOD (1962) which established him as an astonishing new talent. After producing an extraordinary body of work, including SOLARIS, MIRROR and STALKER he announced, whilst working in Italy, that he would not return to the USSR; two years later he died in Paris. Tarkovsky's memory has since been venerated in his homeland, as it has throughout the world.