Farewell Comrades!

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Farewell Comrades! is an innovative documentary series telling the story of the countdown to the demise of the Soviet world and of the Socialist utopia, which it was based on.

Year

2024

Length

6×52 min

Director

Andrei Nekrasov

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December 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, calls the main Western heads of State. Shortly after, in a televised speech, Mikhail Gorbachev announces: “I quit my duties as President of the USSR.” He ends 80 years of history.

It is an unexpected outcome to the grand communist vision that had held the world in anticipation since the October Revolution in 1917. Yet in 1975, during the Helsinki Conference, the utopia seemed to be at the peak of its geographical expansion, controlling or influencing almost half of the planet‘s population.

Filmed in 12 European countries, Farewell Comrades! follows the march of history through testimonies of known and unknown people, who participated in the different stages of this slow erosion, which neither state apparatchiks, nor secret services, nor heads of states around the world had predicted.

1. Episode: Victory (1975-1979)
2. Episode: Wars (1980-1984)
3. Episode: Hope (1985-1987)
4. Episode: Awakening (1988)
5. Episode: Rebellion (1989)
6. Episode: Collapse (1990-1991)

Directed by
Andrei Nekrasov

Written by
Jean-François Colosimo
Andrei Nekrasov
György Dalos

Cinematography
Sorin Dragoi, RSC
Andrei Erastov
Roman Ielensky

Editor
Anne Lacour
Philipp Gromov
Lena Rem
Sonja Baeger

Music
Nils Kacirek
Jan-Peter Pflug

Postproduction supervisor
Christian Popp

Producer
Christian Beetz
Olivier Mille

Farewell Comrades!
Trailer
  • „Just in diesem Moment überraschen uns die aus dem Theaterbereich stammenden jungen Regisseure Hans Block und Moritz Riesewieck mit einem erstaunlichen Dokumentarfilm, der seit Monaten Publikum und Kritik auf den wichtigsten Festivals der Welt elektrisiert. Völlig zu Recht: Es ist, als würden einem die Scheuklappen weggerissen, als sähe man das, was sich seit Jahren direkt vor unseren Augen abspielt, zum ersten Mal unverschleiert... eine fesselnde ,Doku noir' mit höchstem Anspruch...Dieser Film müsste an allen Schulen gezeigt werden.“
    Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
    17.05.2018

In co-production with

  • wdr

A production by

  • Beetz
  • artline
  • arte
  • zdf
  • yle
  • tvp

In co-production with

  • eureka
  • havas
  • hifilm
  • hypermarket
  • piraya
  • trigon
  • rbb

In association with

  • ceska
  • err
  • ert
  • List Title
  • nrk
  • rts
  • stv