The protagonist of Andrei Tarkovsky’s classic film is an illegal guide known as ‘Stalker’. The film follows Stalker as he leads a writer seeking inspiration and a scientist hoping to make a discovery into the heart of a fiercely protected post-apocalyptic wasteland known as ‘The Zone’. They are both searching for a mythical place known only as ‘The Room’. Anyone who enters The Room will supposedly have any of his earthly desires immediately fulfilled.
The movie is an adaptation of a novel called Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, it is Tarkovsky’s fifth feature and the last he made in the Soviet Union.
The film has been selected by poet and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter, Dr John Wedgwood Clarke, who will introduce it. John is currently undertaking an 18 month research project Red River: Listening to a Polluted River is an funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through their Leadership Fellowship scheme. The project explores how creative writing can transform our relationship to a polluted, post-industrial river through listening to the human and non-human voices that have shaped, and continue to shape, its course. A day of talks and presentations on the Red River will be held at CAST on Saturday 9 October – redriverpoetry.com.
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