''Empire'' (russian: Ампир,

translit. Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

''Ampir''; from french: empire) is a

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

directed by

Alexander Sokurov Alexander Nikolayevich Sokurov, PAR (russian: link=no, Александр Николаевич Сокуров; born 14 June 1951) is a Russian filmmaker. His most significant works include a feature film, ''Russian Ark'' (2002), filmed in a s ...

, released in 1986. The movie is based on a play by

Lucille Fletcher Violet Lucille Fletcher (March 28, 1912August 31, 2000) was an American screenwriter of film, radio and television. Her credits include ''The Hitch-Hiker (radio play), The Hitch-Hiker,'' an original radio play written for Orson Welles and adapt ...

Background

''Empire'' was inspired by

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

Sorry, Wrong Number ''Sorry, Wrong Number'' is a 1948 American thriller film noir directed by Anatole Litvak, from a screenplay by Lucille Fletcher, based on her 1943 radio play of the same name. The film stars Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster. It follows a bed ...

''. For the film, Sokurov, as often, selected a single motif from the work of inspiration – in this case, it was the sickness of a woman. It was produced as the graduation work of S. Sidorov from the

VGIK The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (russian: Всероссийский государственный институт кинематографии имени С. А. Герасимова, meaning ''All-Russian State Institute of Cinemat ...

. At that time Sokurov was not allowed to work on his own films, and saw this as an opportunity to continue work in the field.

References

External links

* *
Sokurov's website
1986 films Lenfilm films Films directed by Alexander Sokurov Soviet short films 1980s Russian-language films 1986 drama films 1980s Soviet films {{short-drama-film-stub