Boris Barnet, A Soviet Poet

From March 13 to April 11, 2026, Metrograph and The Theater of the Matters present Boris Barnet, A Soviet Poet, a month-long retrospective dedicated to the boxer-turned-filmmaker Boris Barnet. On the occasion of the retrospective, a selection of related texts, including Bernard Eisenschitz’s “A Fickle Man, or Portrait of Boris Barnet as a Soviet Director,” Barnet’s own “Remarks on Film Comedy,” reflections by Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette, and André Bazin’s text on Shchedroe leto [Bountiful Summer] (1951), is published on The Theater of the Matters’ website.

“A great Japanese painter reviewed his life and work as follows: from twenty to forty he did still lifes and landscapes; between forty and sixty he painted birds; then from sixty to eighty geese, ducks, chickens–all sorts of domestic animals. And it was only at the beginning of his hundredth year that he felt ready to portray humans… My ambition has also been to show the place of man in contemporary life. I could and would not wait that long before taking my chance.” – Boris Barnet