If you’re going to go to the ballet for the very first time, you might as well go to Saint Petersburg’s historic Mariinsky Theater. And if it’s almost Christmas, you might as well go see The Nutcracker, which premiered in this very theater on December 18, 1892 with music by native son Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. […]

Today’s excursion adventure takes us to the far side of Vasilievsky Island, to the Sevkabel Port a new “urban renewal” project where hipsters meet to ice skate, buy artisanal sausage while Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” wafts around in the background and, for two days this weekend, check out the […]

Winter solstice in Saint Petersburg means sunrise at 9:58 AM and sunset at 3:52 PM. We celebrate the light by each shooting a roll of Super 8 over the course of a six-hour “dawn to dusk” ramble. At times we get so cold we can barely hold the cameras and the cameras get so cold […]

Now that The Sound We See: St P is all spliced, telecined and assembled (and it looks amaaaaaaaazing!), the participants are searching for musicians to do the score and we have time to visit-what else?-more artists in their natural habitats. Climbing many many flights of stairs in an old apartment building and entering the studio […]

Today we have the pleasure of sharing the story of Echo Park Film Center’s community media arts practice with Susan Katz’s terrific graduate students at Smolny College, created in 1994 by Saint Petersburg State University in conjunction with Bard College as the first Liberal Arts College in the city. Go forth and curate, young women! […]

“It’s like the first time having sex…but better!” Hearing a comment like that when you’re sitting in a pitch black room with five new friends who are hand-developing their very first roll of Super 8 is the moment you know you’ve done your job right! And when someone else says “Thanks for the emotions!” after […]

Sunshine! The first time we’ve seen it in almost two weeks. Seems like a good day to do a 16mm workshop with the Bolex and the HiCon we brought. After shooting some footage outside in the frosty air, Nastya and Nikolai learn how to eco-process with the cheapest local beer we can find in our […]

Sunday morning! Last day of filming! We ping pong around the city by foot, metro, and taxi beginning with a sweet father/daughter shoot with Roman and Sophia at Anna’s charming mosaic studio nestled in the attic of a nondescript building. The splashes of color that make up Frida, Pushkin and the cats are just what […]

We slept all day and now it’s time to film! Did you know that Saint Petersburg is actually built on a series of islands, connected by 342 bridges? They don’t call it The Venice of the North for nothing! Our favorite island is Vasilyevsky. A little bit old timey, a little bit Brooklyn, a little […]

Saint Petersburg’s first theater was established in 1756 by order of Empress Elizabeth and there are apparently more than 100 theaters and theater companies currently in active operation. You seriously cannot walk a block without seeing a venue (grand or small) advertising some form of theatrical entertainment: opera, ballet, circus, comedic theater, political theater, theater […]