Ian Christie

Cinema became the Soviet Union's 'most important art' because Lenin said it should be. And for 70 years Soviet films impressed, terrified, and inspired audiences around the world, finally foretelling the collapse of the USSR. I witnessed the final decade firsthand, befriended many of the leading filmmakers and helped get their films shown abroad - as well as revealing the wealth of pre-1917 production that Soviet cinema had long repressed, along with its own troublesome history of banned films.

With colour illustration thoughout, this is an affordable personal history of discovery, and the revelation of a multi-ethnic cinema tradition that changed the world, irrespective of who was, and is, in the Kremlin.