Gorbachev. Heaven

For some, the destructor of the Soviet empire, betrayer of his own country, iconoclast. For many a peacemaker, bringer of faith, dynamic figure of the global world. A portrait of the spiritual father of perestroika and glasnost, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, presents an intimate struggle between two personalities: an aging, though still vital legend of Russian politics and a critical creator, interrogator and philosopher. Both offer their own versions of understanding the key moments of the socialist era’s end in Russia. Vitaly Mansky composes a mosaic made up of contemplative moments and debates intertwined with singing and poetry. A documentary epitaph of a feeble-bodied statesman put in contrast with the chaos of Putin’s contemporary Russia. A requiem for an echoing spring of the heavenly music of one’s childhood.„A mountain standing up high, with a forest lying at its foot, green and lush, a real paradise. A rivulet winds up around here, glittering as glass, with water flowing out. By the silent water edge, little boats calmly sleep, with willows overshadowing them, in their still grief. When the summer is gone, winds will blow again. Leaves will fall, carried away by the stream. To you, my dear rivulet, the spring will return. Not my youth though, it will disappear forever.” „I wished to see a man behind the cold marble, who decided to make the world a better place to live. And that’s why, for a long time, we didn’t give up hopes of convincing this life-beaten, almost 90-year-old man to let us into his world of desolation, frustrations, but also a joy of freedom!” V. Mansky