Documentary film

 

Nabokov's Magic Lantern

Directed by Yuri Leving (Canada, 2021, 60 min.)

Q&A with the Director after screening

 

15 November, 2021, 13:00

Mt. Scopus, Library, Media 32

 

Manuscripts don't burn, but can one erase the reputation? Why did the son violate his father's last will? Who really authored The Novel with Cocaine? Can the cover of Lolita be more provocative than the story itself? If Vladimir Nabokov did not wish to return to Russia, why was his personal archive brought to St. Petersburg? Yuri Leving’s new documentary dives deep into these controversial questions. Featuring rare archival footage and interviews with Nabokov's son, with the writer’s biographer, his friends, and posthumous readers, the film offers a refreshing look into a classic’s life: the man behind his own statue in Montreux.

YURI LEVING is a Professor of Russian literature and film at Dalhousie University, Canada. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Nabokov Online Journal. Leving has published 10 monographs and 6 edited collections. His latest book, Nabokov in Motion. Movement and Modernity, is coming out with Bloomsbury in February 2022.