Filmmaker Alexander Sokurov’s film tribute to the Hermitage is unexpected and amazing. “Russian Ark was made in a single hour-and-a-half-long shot, unedited. It took that hour and a half to film (after two years of preparation) and takes the same time to watch. It is the first film to be made in this way, exploiting digital technology not to bend reality but to do justice to it – no film on celluloid could continue unbroken for this amount of time.”