Considered by many to be one of the greatest filmmakers ever, Andrei Tarkovsky -- son of poet Arseniy Tarkovsky -- is perhaps the second most famous Soviet filmmaker after Sergei Eisenstein. Tarkovsky shot to fame with his 1962 feature Ivan's Childhood, an extraordinarily moving view of war and revenge, shot in beautiful mud-soaked monochrome. The film's lead actor, Nikolai Burlyae, will take part in a Q&A post-screening of the film (11/12, 6:50pm). Alongside this special screening catch several other screenings/talks with other actors involved in Tarkovsky's memorable canon, including, among others, Natalia Bondarchuk (the lead actress in Solaris (12/12, 6pm)) and Oleg Yankovsky (the lead actor in Nostalgia (13/12, 6:30pm)), along with various other collaborators, as they talk about Tarkovsky's life and work.

His second visionary feature, Andrei Rublev, was larger in scale, charting the life of the icon painter against a backdrop of turbulent 15th Century Russia, and was banned by the Soviet authorities for three years. Solaris (based on the Stanislaw Lem science fiction novel, which also inspired the Soderburgh film), was Tarkovsky's breakthrough film, and unhappily (from the director's point of view) seen as the "Soviet 2001". After the more autobiographical film Mirror and Stalker (which was completely re-shot after the first version was accidentally destroyed), his last two pieces of work Nostalgia and The Sacrifice were shot abroad, and gave the impression of a director very much in exile. He died shortly after the release of this last film, from cancer, leaving a brief but inspiring collection of epic, philosophical and moving work.

NB the festival kicks off on 05/12 and runs till 13/12. It takes place at various venues including Pushkin House and the Curzon Cinemas. The programme comprises most of Andrei Tarkovsky's films but also documentaries, talks and an exhibition of his Polaroid photographs.

Oscar-winning scriptwriter Ronald Harwood (who scripted Roman Polanski's The Pianist) and renowned author and playwright, will be taking part in The Script Factory at BFI Southbank, discussing his approach to adaptation for the screen. Harwood's had a colourful life, starting out as personal dresser to the great actor-manager-eccentric Sir Donald Wolfit in the '50s (drawing on this experience for his hugely successful play-cum-film-script The Dresser). In the '60s Harwood embarked on a prolific writing career, penning plays, novels and non-fiction. Among his other film-scripts are The Browning Version, Being Julia and Oliver Twist (also for Polanski). His most recent screen success is the Cannes 2007 hit The Diving Bell And The Butterfly for director Julian Schnabel (Schnabel won the Best Director award).

NB: after the talk, Ronald Harwood will sign copies of his book Ronald Harwood's Adaptations: From Other Works Into Film.

Does Thurston Moore really need an introduction? To those who may have somehow passed by one of the most iconic indie/alternative musicians of this generation, Moore is a New York-based singer-songwriter and lead guitarist, founding member and vocalist of legendary and genre-defining band Sonic Youth. His position within Sonic Youth is perhaps only half the story, since he has participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of the band and runs a record label, Ecstatic Peace! As a solo artist Moore has only released two albums: 1995's Psychic Hearts and 2007's Trees Outside The Academy, the latter of which is perhaps his most consistent solo album to date. As a point of reference, both albums tend towards the more experimental and noisy end of the Sonic Youth back catalogue, although they also feature occasional flourishes of exquisite melody and beautiful string arrangements. This is an incredibly rare solo show, a lucky treat for London as Moore passes through on the way to play the Portishead-curated ATP so don't miss it.

Shoreditch, that home from home for an infinite number of anodyne bands praying for an electroclash revival, throws up something interesting this Thursday evening in the shape of rising female vocalist Santogold, headlining the Burga Sauce night. Imagine if you will, some mad scientist splicing together MIA, Debbie Harry and Gwen Stefani, removing the annoying elements of each: the result is Santogold. Namechecked by Rolling Stone as one to watch, handpicked by Icelandic imp Bjork to open for her New York show and friendly with all the right people (the whole maddecent clique and Messrs Switch and Sinden) Santi White has had blogland singing her praises for months now. With a debut single out now (the speaker junking noise of "Creator" backed with the jellybean pop of "L.E.S. Artistes") and an album to follow in the spring of next year, this is an excellent chance to see a rising star months before your friends read about her in Observer Music Monthly. It's worth getting there early for the support act, for once, with the bloggers' delight that is Swedish rapper Mapei bringing her high-pitch approach to hip-hop. If you fear all this isn't Shoreditch enough, don't worry: Real Gold and Snaggle Brothers are DJing too.

NB: also of note is Border Community's night at The End (08/12, 10pm -7am) with Cobblestone Jazz (live) and James Holden.

Mexican director Carlos Reygadas' third film, following after Japon and Battle In Heaven, once again presents a normally unseen portrayal of the country, far removed from the cactuses, bandits or other cliches of cinematic Mexico. Focusing on an austere Mennonite community in northern Chihuahua, Silent Light has echoes of classical Greek tragedy: a story of ordinary people facing overwhelming emotions -- passion, guilt, grief -- and questioning their purpose in life. Farmer Johan, traditional, moral, pious and a devoted father and husband, finds himself consumed with a compelling passion for a local woman. By embracing what he believes is his divine fate, his actions go on to have a devastating effect on his family and community. Featuring Mennonite non-professional actors and dialogue in the sect's Plautdietsch language, Reygadas fully utilises the landscape, the seasons and natural light to reinforce the stillness, the ecstasy and the turmoil of his characters. Winner of the 2007 Cannes Jury Award, the film is gorgeously shot, and although the sometimes painfully slow pace will not be to everyone's taste, the magnificent redemptive finale (a la Carl Dreyer) is well worth the wait.

NB: Silent Light is released in London on 07/12.

While London clubs are saturated to breaking point with burlesque performance nights, cabaret-inspired cinema has been sadly neglected. The Smoking Cabinet is attempting to right this wrong with a new three-day festival celebrating early film from the Belle Epoque to Weimar Berlin. Discussions with experts from the BFI and National Fairground Archive provide historical perspective while live music, cakes and dancing make for a good, old-fashioned shindig. A carefully selected programme of films reveal the enchanting joie de vivre and delicate eroticism of the period, with a screening of Josef von Sternberg's Blue Angel (1930) and shorts by Fernand Leger, Man Ray, Percy Smith and Jean Renoir. Characterised by a fearless desire to experiment, such rarely screened works could teach many contemporary filmmakers a thing or two.

NB: runs till 09/12.

Filming with two college friends in 1946, a young and intrepid Jean Rouch (1917-2004) lost his tripod in the River Niger. Forced to shoot with a handheld camera, Rouch and his two friends unknowingly participated in the early history of cinema verite (a term closely associated with Rouch's work). With his improvisatory techniques and playful storytelling, the French filmmaker acted as a great influence on the Nouvelle Vague and can be seen as the spiritual ancestor of contemporary filmmakers such as Nick Broomfield and Michael Moore. And yet, sadly, his work is notoriously hard to see. This weekend, a special study day at Birkbeck College (08/12) and a double-bill at the Cine Lumiere (09/12) will provide audiences a rare chance to see some of Rouch's most enduring sociological works. Birkbeck College will screen Moi un noir (1958), Jaguar (1967), Petit a Petit (1971), and Chronique d'un ete (1961) along with round?table discussions. The Cine Lumiere will screen La Pyramide humaine (1959), a documentary fiction exploring relationships between black and white school students in Abidjan, and Les Maitres fous (1955), a work following the rituals of a Ghanaian religious cult. Fascinating portrayals of race and power, these influential works are a must?see for all cinephiles.

NB: the Saturday symposium will include among others Ian Christie, Paul Henley, Bernard Surugue, and Joram ten Brink.

Never seeming to shirk from a challenge, Nicolas Hodges has programmed the complete piano works of two composers who write deviously complex music: James Clarke and Roger Redgate. Although both are established and tarred with the New Complexity brush (which almost no-one seems to want to be pigeonholed by), neither has gained the reputation of Brian Ferneyhough or Michael Finnissy (whose music Hodges has played and recorded) but both offer something different. For the uninitiated, this may be a very long way from Classic FM but should nonetheless show the contrasting personalities of two different composers, whilst Hodges as a performer will surely be pushed to his limits.

Blog tarts have recently been feasting themselves on remixes that turn the pretty into the nasty -- perhaps dubstep is to blame for the invasion of the wamp wamp into otherwise well-behaved house and pop tracks. Be that as it may, one of the most nimble exponents of the style is Curtis Vodka. Don't let the fact that he's a) from Alaska and b) looks more like Screech from Saved by the Bell than a superstar DJ fool you -- this youngster punches heavy in bringing crunk and ghettotech to the electro-obsessed masses. Recent victims of his slice and explode method are Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Ed Banger bimbo-in-chief Uffie (whose creations usually benefit from some heavy-handed treatment). Surprisingly enough this is Vodka's only planned UK date but should have enough breadth to please the hungry download addicts and those who just like the bounce. On the band front are entertaining Le Tigre soundalikes Rhythmn King And Her Friends, and Test Icicles minus Dev (now Lightspeed Champion), currently known as Kasms and sounding suitably noisy.

NB: also of note is Border Community's night at The End (10pm -7am) with Cobblestone Jazz (live) and James Holden.

The momentum of ATP's Don't Look Back season seems fairly unstoppable, and Londoners are doing pretty well off the back of the ATP weekender in Minehead this weekend. Among the treats on offer is a Sunday night show from the Genius/GZA from Wu-Tang Clan, who'll be performing his 1995 album, Liquid Swords, in full. This marks the first time that the esteemed platform has been granted to a hip-hop artist, though he shared the stage with Slint and Sonic Youth during an associated US event earlier in the year. In justification, Liquid Swords is arguably the finest solo Wu-Tang venture, on which the GZA paints darkly intricate tales of street life over an imposing musical canvas laid down by the RZA at the peak of his production powers. The album's effectiveness lies partly in the confidence with which it eschews ghetto cliches and hip-hop posturing in favour of genuine atmosphere, and it's crucial that the live incarnation plays to the same strengths.

Sunn O))) + Boris + Earth @ The Forum (10/12)
After their mind-blowing double bill show at the Islington Academy and subsequent London appearances, the precursors to the new wave of dronecore/post-metal music, Sunn O))) and Dylan Carson's Earth, present an unmissable line-up on their way back from the Portishead-curated ATP . Sunn O))) will perform last year's remarkable Altar album. They will be joined by legendary Japanese metal band Boris and guitar-drone maestro Oren Ambarchi. With their Trance-like soundscapes and low end/bottom frequencies, it has now become a must to hear them live with their unique ability to revive metal fusing it with minimalism, drone and noise.

Oren Ambarchi + Stephen O'Malley + Z'EV... @ Red Rose Club (11/12)
Taking a similar stand and approach to the Sotto Voce Festival, London's experimental events organiser [no.signal] has put together a stellar UK premiere. Acts will range from near-silent acoustic guitar compositions as performed by Tokyo's Tetuzi Akiyama and French electronician Herve Boghossian, to very loud drones and dark tones from Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O'Malley (with a surprise guest). The transition from one to the other will be heard via the percussions of US industrialist Z'EV blending with chords of David Maranha's Osso Exotico and lower case instrumentations by sound 323 boss and percussion provocateur Mark Wastell with Joachim Nordwall from iDeal Recordings. In short, this is a "day festival" right out of the blue.

Filmmaker Andrew Piddington evidently approached his dramatised account of Mark Chapman's murder of John Lennon with the same obsession that drove Chapman (a wonderfully natural performance from Jonas Ball) to execute the terrible deed. All scenes were shot on the actual locations where they took place -- Chapman's apartment in Hawaii, the gunshop where he bought the murder weapon, the Sheraton Hotel where Chapman stayed in New York, the outside of the Dakota building where Lennon was gunned down and even the Scientology building in Hawaii where Chapman harangued Scientologists before aiming his sights at an altogether different target. The voice-over is made up of Chapman's actual words -- from interviews, depositions and court transcripts. And all dialogue is taken from direct testimony. Chapman had a violent father, a mother straight out of The Glass Menagerie and an almost religious devotion to The Catcher In The Rye and its lead, Holden Caulfield. Clearly, Chapman was a young man with diminished self-esteem and fractured sense of self (that classic post-modern malaise). Pidddington's film is an absorbing exploration of a fragmented soul who kills his former hero in a futile attempt to re-establish his own identity.

NB: The Killing Of John Lenon is released in London on 07/12.

Mieke Bal is one of those puzzling academics who makes the rest of us look bad. She achieved critical success by applying principles of narratology to visual arts and by forging a feminist reading of the bible. She is a professor of cultural studies at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis with a specialty in religion, feminism and visual art. Her current research interests are: narratology between the disciplines, traveling concepts, performativity and... preposterous history. Oh and she's also a video artist. If you want to learn more about how all of this might fit together in one mind, her contribution to Bartlett's International Lecture series may well enlighten. Her lecture will focus on Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth, the crack in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall that's slowly getting the reputation of a man-eating canyon, given all those media reports of injuries.

With their enigmatic organic forms, intense powdery colour, and biomorphic structures, Anish Kapoor's sculptures suggest he is a man out of time. Today the Indian-born artist and Turner Prize-winner is the closest we in England have come to either an Yves Klein, Barnett Newman or Californian light/space artist. His 2002 Unilever commission, Marsyas, made from steel and fabric, felt like the biggest indoor sculpture of all time. But maybe that was the turning point; his public work since has become as increasingly monumental as it has phenomenological. All shiny surfaces and smooth curves, he says it's his Indian origins that bring this "spiritual" approach to form. Even if this were not so, these objects have presence. Despite the fact that in recent years, he has striven towards the shiny perfection of James Lee Byars, Kapoor's sense of the ideal is located in a very material form. He will be speaking to the art historian and critic Richard Cork.

Allez Allez have been on fine form this year, splitting their attentions between The Amersham Arms in New Cross and everyone's favourite Shoreditch bass bunker Plastic People. Next Wednesday it's the turn of Plastic People and once again they're hosting the brilliant Cologne-based techno and microhouse label Kompakt. Following the last few visits from the likes of label boss Michael Mayer, Thomas Fehlmann and Justus Koehncke, it's now the turn of one of the label's hyped prospects DJ Koze. One of the most regarded producers working in Europe today, Koze's tracks fizz and crackle with invention, whilst his remixes for the likes of Battles on Warp, Ada and Matthew Dear involve more ideas than most minimal producers manage in their whole careers. No slouch as a DJ either (this evening sees him manning the decks for a three-hour set), he has fully embraced all the opportunities available to the technically savvy mobile jock today, looping and editing tracks on the fly for maximum minimal effect. Just what you need to techno up your Wednesday night.

NB: also of note is Border Community's night at The End (08/12, 10pm -7am) with Cobblestone Jazz (live) and James Holden.

Cape Town-born artist Marlene Dumas has secured an international audience for her visceral paintings. Dumas emigrated from South Africa to the Netherlands, and the culture of both countries is evident in her work, which often references pornographic imagery and issues of race and sexuality. Film archives, magazines or polaroid photos of friends, lovers and strangers are variously starting points for her "intellectually expressionistic" canvases. The gravity of Dumas' draughtsmanship, combined with an assured lightness of touch, has made her one of the most successful living female artists and propelled her auction record above those of female art stars such as Eva Hesse and Agnes Martin. Dumas has been at the forefront of the return of painting, accurately foreseen by Charles Saatchi in his 2005 Triumph Of Painting show, which featured male contemporaries Martin Kippenberger, Peter Doig and Luc Tuymans. Three of the paintings that fetched auction records for Dumas include Young Boys, Feather Stola and Jule-die Vrou, all of which were exhibited in Triumph Of Painting. During this talk, Dumas will hopefully reveal some of the political, social and historical aspects of her practice, and provide an insight into the mind of a modern-day feminist icon.

NB: this talk has been programmed in conjunction with The Hayward's Painting Of Modern Life exhibition (runs till 30/12).

Benedetto Pietromarchi explores the structural relation of thought, described by Kant as the "architectonic". Central to the exhibition is a monumental handcrafted chariot or carrozza, suspended from the ceiling of the lower gallery. A concern with absence is evident, and the artist attempts to break the language of objects and embody thought in a physical structure. On the upper floor is a lightbulb sculpture similar to one exhibited in Reconstruction 1 at Sudeley Castle (2006), juxtaposed with a dazzling azure fresco of a chariot. The chariot itself is deconstructed and displaced, one wheel has been removed, and a second seat takes the place of a horse. A diving board protrudes from the top producing a surreal interpretation of a traditional object. Pietromarchi leaves the viewer to interpret the chariot. Carrozza conjures up various visions: lovers in a Central Park horse and carriage; a genteel Victorian lady en route to her London townhouse; a Roman chariot race in the country where Pietromarchi was born. The artist is not giving anything away, so we encourage you to see the show and let your imagination run away with you.

NB: runs till 20/12. Also of note this week is Heather and Ivan Morison's BloombergSPACE show which ends on 12/12 (on 11/12 from 6 - 9pm, make sure you stop by and pick us some flowers from the show).

This group exhibition exploring energy -- as both a political issue and fairly intangible concept -- flies in the face of current environmental initiatives designed to reduce the rate at which we consume and pollute the planet. Curator and critic JJ Charlesworth asks us to imagine "a world based on more energy, not less", something that could become a reality, he posits, if over the next few years the British EU-funded nuclear fusion project HiPER proves successful. Despite the formality of this former shop, the gallery feels more like the site of experimentation encouraging us to explore different points of contact between art, science and politics than multimedia boutique. Many of the works here, including Charlesworth's own, take on the potential value of Hirst's skull, and question the role of art in this moment: Roger Hiorns' semen-encrusted light bulb, curiously ephemeral and unplugged, radiates warning of a literally blinding biotech future, while Sam Basu takes the notion of recycling to a distant plane -- his cardboard bobbin assemblage is equally reminiscent of biological structures as retro visions of a sci-fi future.

NB: runs till 20/12. Also of note this week is Heather and Ivan Morison's BloombergSPACE show which ends on 12/12 (on 11/12 from 6 - 9pm, make sure you stop by and pick us some flowers from the show).

The subtlety of Ian Kiaer's spartan manifestations immediately prompts thoughts of a visual set-up. Just how specific is his selection and arrangement of objects, most of which initially appear to be packaging materials of Asian origin? Scale, as with the temporal construction of these works, seems both an incidental and purposefully deployed device: Kiaer uses the existing physical properties of these "found" objects to draw us into miniature sets that oppose structural failure with the sculptural ennui of a half-realised building project. It's tempting to focus on the art-referential nature of these second-hand constructions -- Kiaer's minimal approach to materiality brings to mind Martin Creed's intellectual assault on monumentalism -- but, essentially, this particular series concerns the rash of modernist-style architectural projects currently redefining Seoul's overpopulated Ulchiro market district. It's hard to imagine (as the press release implies) how a flimsy scaffolding structure or a carefully doctored airplane sick bag could be considered "proposals" for an alternate social reality, but the charm and humour of their manufacture certianly exposes the futility of desire in the face of human need.

NB: runs till 22/12. Also of note this week is Heather and Ivan Morison's BloombergSPACE show which ends on 12/12 (on 11/12 from 6 - 9pm, make sure you stop by and pick us some flowers from the show).

Is Anal Sex Legal? or Is Legal Sex Anal? Tracey Emin's light installation poses questions that set the tone for the Barbican's provocative exhibition. Delving deep into the history of sex in art, the curators explore the boundaries between acceptability and censorship. Whilst uncomfortable subjects such as bondage and sado-masochism are depicted, in Mapplethorpe photographs and Marquis de Sade illustrations, there are also sensual etchings and drawings by Duchamp, Picasso and Schiele, that capture with a few lines the curve of a neck or buttock, and a sensitive Nan Goldin film observing couples in intimate moments. Seduced: Art And Sex From Antiquity To Now is a chronological look at the development of sexual imagery dating back to scenes of Ancient Greeks copulating, via Indian Kama Sutra miniatures, to Thomas Ruff's painterly internet pornography, and the candy-coloured porn of Jeff Koons in flagrante with La Cicciolina. Rough techno-sex depicted in Chris Cunningham's 2000 video flex caused a storm when shown in Sensation, yet seems tame when compared here to a Carracci engraving of a satyr flogging a nymph. Several exhibits threaten to cross the line between art and pornography, yet the Barbican credits the visitor with enough intelligence to let them form their own opinions without imposing censorship.

NB: runs till 12/01/08. Also of note this week is Heather and Ivan Morison's BloombergSPACE show which ends on 12/12 (on 11/12 from 6 - 9pm, make sure you stop by and pick us some flowers from the show).

KultureFlash is a free, weekly newsletter covering contemporary culture in and around London. Each week we track down some of the more unusual and interesting events taking place in the capital and deliver them straight to your inbox. Featuring art, gigs, films, talks, clubs and more -- we are committed to bringing you an eclectic mix of the most stimulating events in London.

If you want to tell us about an upcoming event please do so by sending an email to: events@kultureflash.net. We receive many emails and thus please realise that sadly we cannot reply to all of them. Every single email receives attention and we will contact you if we need anything further. Please note that KultureFlash is not a listings ezine and we do not receive any payment from venues, artists, managers or promoters.

Please send all press releases, invites, books and CDs to:

KultureFlash Ltd.
52 Cranmer Court
Whitehead's Grove
London SW3 3HW