Screening: 'My Perestroika'

Weaving interviews, home movies and Soviet propaganda films, the film My Perestroika paints a picture of the dreams and disillusionment of those raised behind the Iron Curtain.

The Cinema Arts Centre screening at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 7, will be followed by a q & a session and reception with filmmaker Robin Hessman, who lived in Russia for eight years and worked for Children’s Television Workshop as the on-site producer of Ulitsa Sezam, the original Russian-language Sesame Street.

My Perestroika follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times – 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.

The film interweaves their contemporary world with rare home movie footage from the 1970s and '80s in the USSR, along with official Soviet propaganda films that surrounded them at the time. Their memories and opinions sometimes complement each other and sometimes contradict each other, but together they paint a complex picture of the challenges, dreams, and disillusionment of this generation in Moscow today. USA, UK, Russia, 2010, 88 minutes. In English and Russian w/English subtitles.

The showing is part of the Reel to Reel Documentary Film Series at Cinema Arts Centre.

Members $9 / Public $13. Includes reception. Tickets can be purchased online, www.CinemaArtsCentre.org at the box office during theatre hours or by calling Brown Paper Tickets toll free at 1-800-838-3006