''My Perestroika'' is a 2010 American

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

directed by

Robin Hessman Robin most commonly refers to several species of passerine birds. Robin may also refer to: Animals * Australasian robins, red-breasted songbirds of the family Petroicidae * Many members of the subfamily Saxicolinae (Old World chats), includi ...

. It examines life during and after the USSR through the personal stories of five ordinary Russians, who speak about their Soviet childhood, the collapse of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, and contemporary Russia. The film premiered at the 2010

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

. In 2011, the documentary was awarded a

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and in ...

Synopsis

There is no single narrator in the film. Instead, the stories are told by five inhabitants of

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, four of whom grew up together and were classmates from primary school through high school. Borya and Lyuba are a married couple and history teachers at the Moscow school 57. Andrei has thrived in the new Russian capitalism and has just opened a new store of French men's shirts. Olga, the prettiest girl in the class, is a single mother and works for a company that rents out billiard tables to bars and clubs all over Moscow. Ruslan was a famous Russian punk rock musician who rejects society's structures. Some of the topics that come up are conformity and rebellion, the attitudes towards the USSR and its collapse, the benefits and challenges of the transition to contemporary Russia, and the difference between the older and the younger generations. To tell these stories, Hessman combines first-person recollections, often filmed at the homes of the five protagonists, with home movies from the 1970s and 1980s, canonical Soviet and Russian music, and Soviet archival footage.

Production

Hessman spent about a decade living in Russia. She had lived in Russia in the 1990s, completing an MFA degree in Film Directing at the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography () and working as the producer of the Russian version of

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...

(). She returned to Russia in 2005 to make a film that would convey the human aspect of Russian history and the impact of significant societal and political changes on "ordinary" Russians. It was pitched to the 2007

Sheffield Doc/Fest Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest; abbr.Sheffield International Documentary Festival or SIDF) is an international documentary Film festival, festival and industry marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The festiv ...

MeetMarket prior to completion.

Release

The film premiered at the

in 2010, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. It has since been screened at a number of domestic and international film festivals, including the

Rotterdam Film Festival International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...

, New Directors/New Films at MoMA and Lincoln Center in NYC,

Hot Docs The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June ...

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema founded by Nancy Buirski, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo editor of ''The New York Times'' and documentary filmma ...

AFI Docs The AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) documentary film festival was an American international film festival. Created by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel, it was held annually in Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C., fro ...

, the

Pusan International Film Festival The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF; ), formerly the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), held annually in Haeundae District, Busan, South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festival, held from ...

, London International Documentary Festival, and Human Rights Film Festival in Sarajevo. It has been nominated for and won several awards. ''My Perestroika'' was released in cinemas in the US and Canada in 2011 in over 70 cities. It was nationally broadcast in the US on PBS on the series POV, and it was released on home DVD in 2012.

Reception

The film has met with positive reception from critics and viewers. It has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 90% on Metacritic."My Perestroika" - Metacritic
/ref> It became the #3 Best Critic Reviewed Movie of 2011 on Metacritic.

References

External links