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When the USSR broke apart in 1991, a generation
of young people faced a new realm of possibilities. An intimate
epic about the extraordinary lives of this last Soviet generation,
Robin Hessman’s feature documentary debut tells the
stories of five Moscow schoolmates who were brought up behind
the Iron Curtain, witnessed the joy and confusion of glasnost,
and reached adulthood right as the world changed around them.
Through candid first-person testimony, revealing verité
footage, and vintage home movies, Hessman, who spent many
years living in Moscow, reveals a Russia rarely ever seen
on film, where people are frank about their lives and forthcoming
about their country.
Engaging, funny, and positively inspiring, in MY PERESTROIKA
politics is personal, honesty overshadows ideology, and history
progresses one day, one life at a time.
NYT Critics' Pick
“ENTHRALLING!
Just raw experience. Astoundingly timely.”
–
Stephen Holden, The New York Times
"Remarkably candid....
full of surprises!" –
Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
"INTIMATE and
LOVELY.
Follows five classmates who came of age right before the Iron
Curtain fell – the children of a vanished world. Charting
the ways that time, memory, and a rapidly changing society
have affected their lives, it’s PLAYFUL, INSIGHTFUL,
HYPNOTIC, AND, ULTIMATELY, SUPERB.”
– Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine
Named FILM OF THE WEEK and #1
in CRITICS’ PICKS in Time Out NY
“
***** Filled with lovely, unlikely ideas. My Perestroika wastes
no time confounding expectations. DON’T MISS THIS!”
– Joshua Rothkopf, TimeOut NY
“FASCINATING!
Full of surprises.” –
Richard Schickel, truthdig.com
“Tender, engrossing
and utterly brilliant.
Thanks to Hessman’s archival research, you see the change
in astonishing period images, including a lifetime of Borya’s
home movies.
The experience of change makes My Perestroika a film that
shouldn’t be missed. The lifetime part makes it indispensable.”
– Stuart Klawans, The
Nation
“Tightrope-walking
between cultures during the Cold War’s thaw, Hessman
possesses an East-West street cred that pays off in spades
with her honestly reflective and unselfconscious subjects.
THRILLING VIEWING.”
– Lauren Wissot, Slant
Magazine
"ENGROSSING!"
– David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle
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