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Thursday, January 08, 2009

A Soviet Story - Update

The documentary film The Soviet Story has won the Mass Impact Award at the Boston Film Festival which took place last September.

The film is a brilliant exposé of the Soviet Union's breathtaking brutality and inhumanity. It has been updated with English subtitles in place of the (presumably) Latvian ones in the version I blogged about earlier (here). It also includes special bonus interviews and an interview with the film’s director.

The DVD is now available for purchase at the film's website. There is a press kit there with great info about the launch (and Russian protests against it), as well as a trailer and media clips from European TV broadcasts and articles.

Unfortunately, the North American media has not seen fit to share the news about this film (let alone the film itself) with Canadian and American audiences.

Thank goodness for YouTube. Someone has posted it there in 13 parts. Here's the first:





Here are all the links:

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Part five

Part six (about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact)

Part seven

Part eight (collaboration of SS and NKVD -- written agreement shown)

Part nine

Part ten (NKVD mass graves)

Part eleven

Part twelve (Interview with a KGB torturer in Latvia was still alive and living in Moscow in 2005. Many are still alive and they're proud of what they've done.)

Part thirteen (talks about Russian attitude to Holodomor and Holocaust and how ridiculing mass murder is the norm)

Although you can view the film in sections on YouTube, please support the film-maker and buy a copy (or two) of the DVD if you can afford it. Also, please encourage your local community organizations to buy a copy (or two) for their archives, as well as to donate to schools and public libraries. These will no doubt be receptive to a donation of this quality. This film is a "keeper" for home as well as school and public libraries ... well worth watching more than once.

Get it at the film's website here.

3 comments:

Stanislav said...

Great footage, very actual while the Soviet revanchism is rising. Yesterday I saw news block at Russian government owned TV Vesti... pure revanchism, showinism, ukrainophobia... horrible.

Anonymous said...

The DVD has to get copied and passed around. When anyone has a copy, do that, and send it round for free.
Some percentage of viewers will permanently change their take on Russian history as leading to the Workers' Paradise. Worth doing.

R.

Pawlina said...

Good idea!

How about even taking it a step further? Send a donation to the film-maker as well ... and recommend the people to whom you send it do the same.

Either that, or buy original copies from the filmmaker (if it's an option). This would certainly encourage more such films to be made.

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