Three Songs About the Motherland

Three stories about Russia, situated in three different cities. Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the country's far east, the city of dreams; the metropolis Moscow, the city of sorrow; and the Siberian Khanty-Mansiysk, the city of hope. Respectively speaking, these cities are symbols of the country's past, present and future. The elderly pioneers who cheerfully built the warplane factory in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the 1930s reflect on an eventful history. The assassination of journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow indicates the deplorable state of the freedom of speech in today's Russia. The Siberian oil town of Khanty-Mansiysk boasts a new biathlon stadium, the highest birth rate in the country and a low crime rate; here, the hope for a better future pervades. The trilogy constitutes a sampling of a country in transition, told in little over 30 minutes. Unlike what people in the West often think, Russia is everything but uniform. In the first story, for instance, the opinions about the Communist regime are rather divided: Stalin is called both a hero and a black page in Russian history. The fast editing clearly brings out the similarities and differences between the two visions. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)