Personal perestroika

The much lauded documentary ‘My Perestroika’ will be shown in Moscow next week.

By Diana Kondrashin

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: December 12, 2012 (Issue # 1739)

COURTESY OF RED SQUARE PRODUCTIONS ‘My Perestroika’ follows the lives of five ordinary Russians.

“My Perestroika,” a documentary by Robin Hessman that has had huge success in the United States, had its Russian premiere Saturday in Moscow and will be shown again next week. The film looks at five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times. Hessman, who was in Moscow for the premiere, spoke to The St. Petersburg Times about the film.

Q: How did the idea itself emerge?

A: I arrived in the Soviet Union in 1991 when I was 18, went to VGIK [film school] and worked as a producer for “Ulitsa Sezam,” the Russian “Sesame Street,” so my entire early adult life was spent here. I neither had a Soviet childhood nor a Russian family background, but the generation shown in the film was really the generation that I joined when I moved here. These people had completely normal Soviet childhoods, and they were teenagers struggling with their own identity just when everything started to change: When Gorbachev came, when the foundation started to shake, when everyone started questioning things that were taken for granted. These huge political and historical waves are often examined abstractly from more of a geopolitical point of view. When I came back to the U.S. I was surprised and a little disappointed that despite the end of the Cold War and despite the rising of the Iron Curtain, there was still such superficial information about how things in the first 10 years in Russia had gone. I was asked questions about Russians that I could have answered in ten different ways. So I started thinking of this film as an idea. By telling the story through ordinary people I was hoping to show the diversity of opinions.

Q: The film does not resemble a guide to Russian history for foreigners.

A: I hoped that the film might give the American audience an experience of being here for a while, sitting at the kitchen table having tea with these people. But over the years and years of filming and talking to my Russian friends I realized that I wanted to make a film for them to watch and enjoy as well, so it wasn’t just for outsiders. That made the editing more complicated, to make it not too simplified for them and not too complicated for people who don’t know anything about the country.

Q: How was the film received in the U.S.?

A: It was shown in more than 70 cities around the U.S., and we were surprised how enthusiastic people were about it — both the Americans and former Russian immigrants who even took their children to the movie theaters to show how their early years in the Soviet Union had been.

“My Perestroika” is shown in Russian with English subtitles. It will next be shown in Moscow on Dec. 17 at 7 p.m. at the Sakharov Center. 57 Zemlyanoi Val, building 6, Moscow.

www.sakharov-center.ru