Toronto Silent Film Festival presents, with live accompaniment by Tania Gill

The Master Debuts an Agitprop Masterpiece.

Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike 1925 marks one of the most profound cinematic entrances in film history.

In telling the story of a 1903 strike, triggered by the suicide of a worker after an unjust accusation of theft, and its brutal suppression, Eisenstein experimented using montage, parallel editing, expanded time and intercutting of symbolic images to build the story and emotion on an intertwined path with the characters. It would prove to be a coming out as a director like no other, and one that would change the look of cinema and inspire directors for the next century.

It has all the seeds of his later works but the with an edginess that anchors the rawness of the story. For many, this first feature at age 26 years would remain his greatest work, surpassing even his other masterpiece Battleship Potemkin, for sheer brilliance and power.