As an introduction to a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), Michael Stock introduces P. J. Letofsky, producer of the documentary Tarkovksy: Time Within Time (2015).

Stock and Letofsky discuss the genesis of Solaris, bureaucratized political censorship in the Soviet film industry, the film’s distribution, the poetry of Tarkovsky’s father Arseny, Stanisław Lem’s novel on which the movie is based, and Tarkovsky’s distaste for science fiction, Kubrick’s “2001,” and the whole concept of genre.

The video skips the screening of Solaris, and at the 27:51 mark, resumes with a Q&A session, where Letofsky responds to comments from the audience concerning his own engagement with Tarkovsky, Tarkovsky’s planned by never started movie on Dostoevsky.