MY PERESTROIKA
Coolidge Corner Theatre
Opens Friday, April 8
Special screening with filmmaker Robin Hessman in attendance, Sunday, April 10 at 3pm
In Russian with English subtitles
 
Robin Hessman’s intimate and lovingly crafted feature documentary My Perestroika tells the stories of five ordinary Russians, from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Together, these five childhood classmates paint a complex picture of the hopes, dreams and disillusionment of those raised behind the Iron Curtain. Through candid first-person testimony, revealing verité footage, and vintage home movies, Hessman, who spent many years living in Moscow, reveals a Russia rarely seen on film, where people speak frankly about their lives and country. Engaging, funny, and inspiring, in My Perestroika politics is personal, honesty overshadows ideology, and history progresses one day and one life at a time.

Since premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, My Perestroika has screened at some of the world’s top documentary festivals, including Full Frame, where it won the Filmmaker Award, Silverdocs, where it won the Special Jury Award, and the prestigious New Directors/New Films, a collaboration between the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art.

Tickets for the daily run of My Perestroika and for the April 10th special screening with the director in attendance are now on sale. For more information and advance tickets, visit www.coolidge.org/content/my-perestroika/. Tickets are also available at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street, Brookline. 

About the Filmmaker

Robin Hessman graduated from Brown University with a dual degree in Russian and Film. She received her graduate degree in Film Directing from the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow (with a “red diploma” of honors). During her eight years living in Russia, Hessman worked for the Children’s Television Workshop as the on-site producer of Ulitsa Sezam, the original Russian-language Sesame Street. She is a Center Associate of Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Since 2006, she has served as the Director of Documentary Programming for Amfest, the American Film Festival in Moscow.