Night Watch - fundraiser screening this week

When it was released in its native Russia in 2004, Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) broke all records and took even more at the box office than The Return of the King or Spider Man 2. The movie is the first part of a trilogy, the second of which is already in post- production, while the third is being readied for a 2007 release.

Movies like Underworld and The Matrix have alerted us to the “truth” about our world in which nothing is what it seems. Night Watch has its own premise to put forward: for as long as the human race has existed it has shared the planet with creatures known as “Others” and among these, there are those destined to battle evil and those who, to coin a phrase, have gone to the dark side. However, these “Others”, who are made up of witches, vampires and shape shifters, have made a pact, agreeing that neither can lure a human to its side. To enforce this truce there are soldiers of the Light and those of the Darkness. The soldiers of the Light are called Night Watch.

In present day Moscow, one of the members of the Night Watch is Anton (Konstantin Khabensky), who, some years previously, discovered that he was an “Other” when he was about to enlist the services of a witch to commit a dark deed. Now as Anton battles the forces of evil that transgress and break the truce, a prophecy that has foretold the arrival of a being known as The Great One, is about to come to pass.