The world’s largest country has undergone profound upheaval in recent history. The early idealism of the 1917 Revolution, suppressed during Stalinism, was revived in the relatively liberal Khrushchev’s Thaw of the ‘60s. The following Brezhnev era of stagnation ended with the perestroika, before the turbulent ‘90s and the contemporary political moment.
The films follow the lives of young people at key points in Russian and Soviet history, showing how these moments raised, in new ways, old questions: what sort of person should you be? How can you be a good citizen amidst such social and political change?
This season explores the shifting forms of self-expression, independence and defiance through Russia’s seismic cycles of reinvention.
Presented in partnership with New East Cinema, a cultural collective bringing contemporary cinema from eastern Europe and beyond to the UK.
This season is part of our 2018 season The Art of Change, which explores how the arts respond to, reflect, and potentially effect change in the social and political landscape.
