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My Perestroika

Play trailer Poster for My Perestroika Released Mar 23, 2011 1h 27m Documentary Play Trailer Watchlist
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93% Tomatometer 27 Reviews 78% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
Following the advent of glasnost and perestroika and the eventual collapse of the USSR, the childhood beliefs and ideals of many former Soviets are turned upside down. As the former Communist nation splinters and experiments with democracy and capitalism, five Russians -- married couple Lyuba and Borya, single mother Olga, struggling musician Ruslan and clothing salesman Andrei -- attempt to reconcile their newfound reality with long-held assumptions about what it meant to be Russian.

Critics Reviews

View All (27) Critics Reviews
Liam Lacey Globe and Mail My Perestroika has the quality of a candid conversation with long-lost cousins from another country. Rated: 3/4 Dec 2, 2011 Full Review Linda Barnard Toronto Star Like all of us, they are looking back on the best and most brilliant times of youth. It's a universal longing that knows no politics. Rated: 3/4 Dec 1, 2011 Full Review Mark Jenkins Washington Post "My Perestroika" is specific to Russia, of course, but the juvenile certainty and conformity it chronicles seem universal. Rated: 3/4 May 13, 2011 Full Review Rene Jordan El Nuevo Herald (Miami) With its fascinating rise and fall, [Roller Coaster] is the perfect title for My Perestroika. [Full review in Spanish] Aug 9, 2022 Full Review Mattie Lucas From the Front Row It's an engaging look at a world still foreign to most Westerners, that may not quite be as foreign as we expected. Rated: 3/4 Aug 5, 2019 Full Review Bruce Kirkland Jam! Movies My Perestroika manages to paint a picture of a people twice-disillusioned by their political system -- a uniting thread between East and West, indeed. Rated: 3.5/5 Dec 2, 2011 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (21) audience reviews
Audience Member An impressive film! The director's serendipitous discovery of old film footage of the main subjects in the film made the story whole. Viewing their lives as children growing up in the Soviet system, then going through the collapse of everything they knew and finally how their lives have played out since then was quite illustrative. particularly interesting were the parallels in my own life. I was in the army in those early years and saw the Berlin all go up, the fright of nuclear war in America, then in 1991 the Wall came down -a factor I never expected in my lifetime. I traveled and worked in Russia several times in the following years and personally saw the crumbling of their democratic dreams and their economy and the turn to the authoritarianism of Putin and his cronies. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Audience Member good, but I wouldn't rate it as highly as Metacritic did. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Parts of it are eerily familiar Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Moderately interesting documentary about Russia over the past 30 years. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Audience Member An astonishingly profound portrait of what adults, all from the same class as children, think of the transition from Soviet Russia to capitalism and how it has effected their lives. A point of view your middle school Social Studies teacher missed. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member What makes this documentary enjoyable that it portrays ordinary people and how they felt about the fall of a political system that reigned for almost a century. Facts and dates are always boring but when a person from the street talks about those times than it calls our attention. It's philosophical and thought-provoking. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/23/23 Full Review Read all reviews
My Perestroika

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My Perestroika

Ruslan and Robin Hessman on the set of "My Perestroika." Andrei in "My Perestroika." Lyuba in "My Perestroika." Ruslan in "My Perestroika." Olga in "My Perestroika." (L-R) Borya and Mark in "My Perestroika." View more photos

Movie Info

Synopsis Following the advent of glasnost and perestroika and the eventual collapse of the USSR, the childhood beliefs and ideals of many former Soviets are turned upside down. As the former Communist nation splinters and experiments with democracy and capitalism, five Russians -- married couple Lyuba and Borya, single mother Olga, struggling musician Ruslan and clothing salesman Andrei -- attempt to reconcile their newfound reality with long-held assumptions about what it meant to be Russian.
Director
Robin Hessman
Producer
Robin Hessman, Rachel Wexler
Distributor
International Film Circuit [us]
Genre
Documentary
Original Language
Russian
Release Date (Theaters)
Mar 23, 2011, Limited
Box Office (Gross USA)
$241.9K
Runtime
1h 27m