The Last Night of Rasputin

This rediscovered film by legendary Soviet film director Yevgeny Antinov (a persona by the artist Eleanor Antin) was infamously despised by modernists, hated by traditionalists, disapproved by the government and ignored by his colleagues – he was loved only by the people. With collaboration from his wife, the great African-American ballerina Eleanora Antinova (another person of Antin's), the two lovers created a work that shocked the nation! Billed as "the final orgy and dreadful end of the notorious monk, Rasputin, on the eve of the Russian Revolution," THE LAST NIGHT OF RASPUTIN tells the story of a pre-revolutionary Russia fraught with royal festivities and endless bachannales. Into the aristocratic decadence come a worker, a student and a ballerina, falling victim to wretches but triumphing beyond their station.

"Mayhem, murder, kidnapping, sex, and even cigarette smoking run riot through the film!" - Grace Glueck, The New York Times