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/<http://www.coolidge.org/content…a/>.
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.