On Wednesday 23 May (6.10pm) the latest in an ongoing series of FLAMIN supported artist screenings at the BFI Southbank will present Hannah Collins’ 2006 LAFVA-funded A Current History.

The event is the third in the series of screenings, which have previously included retrospectives of work by LAFVA awardees Carol Morley and Andrew Kotting.

Beshencevo, the ‘mad village’, is situated on the outskirts of the Central Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.

A Current History follows the Chiline family and other inhabitants of the village, as they each adapt differently to life in the post-Soviet era.

Yosha, the son, is addicted to slot machines, something which his mother Zinaida, a Roma gypsy unaware of the possibility for change, criticises him for. Meanwhile his desperate young wife makes daily visits to church to pray for a cure for his addiction. Valentine, the highly intellectual father and the one person in the village who speaks English, travels to the Volga shore to put a ribbon on the wishing tree, hoping for happiness.

Filmed in the depths of winter in temperatures of minus 20 degrees, A Current History was beautifully captured on Super 16mm before being transferred to High Definition, resulting in a fine filmic quality. Collins’ elegantly structured document is reminiscent of the films of Robert Flaherty.

Hannah Collins, who was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1993, has worked in both still photography and moving image and has exhibited widely in Europe and the US.

Following the screening Collins will be in discussion with curator Mark Nash.

Tickets for the screening are available from the BFI Southbank online box office.