AELITA:QUEEN OF MARS
Cities and Memory is proud to present a world first in movie soundtracking, with our Aelita: Queen of Mars project.
Working with the 1924 silent movie that is the first ever Soviet science fiction film, we have divided the film into 30 sections, giving each section to two different artists to soundtrack.
The result is two complete crowdsourced soundtracks developed collaboratively by 60 artists (the “Earth” and “Mars” soundtracks).
Our Aelita video player will randomly select from the Earth or Mars soundtrack at each chapter, giving us a total of 900 possible soundtrack combinations and giving viewers a unique experience every time they watch the movie.
About the film
“Aelita is considered a classic not only of Soviet filmmaking, but of world cinema.” - The Guardian, “Seven Soviet sci-fi films everyone should see”)
Aelita is widely recognised as being one of the first and most influential sci-fi movies, predating Metropolis and directly influencing it, as well as many other classics of the genre.
Based on a novella by Aleksey Tolstoy, it’s also noted as a visual spectacle for its Cubo-Futurist set designs and portrayal of Mars, and also the combination of dystopian themes and Soviet propaganda. Released in 1924, the first Soviet blockbuster is now in the public domain worldwide.
About the soundtracks
The 60 artists taking part are from 12 countries around the world, and will be using a huge range of techniques from modular synths and electronics at one end to spoken word and neoclassical at the other.
Though each section is being soundtracked by a separate artist (like a sort of sonic “exquisite corpse!), they are working closely together throughout the process to share items, motifs and themes across the movie.
All of this is, of course, done by human artists, with no AI or algorithmic creation – the project is designed from start to finish to be an antidote to AI content.
It’s unusual for a movie to have inspired creations as diverse as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day… Aelita: Queen of Mars is, in fact, secretly one of the most influential sci-fi movies of all time.
– Inverse magazine
AELITA:sample excerpt
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"As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. A description of [the city] as it is today should contain all [the city's] past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the bags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls."
- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Grand Prix winner and Coup de Coeur winner, Académie Charles Cros
