Mansky is a Russian documentary filmmaker of Ukrainian descent, currently living in Latvia. In the East, he is also looking for themes for his films, which are often created with the co-production support of Czech Television and are also screened at domestic festivals.
Czech viewers could thus see his view of life in the DPRK (In the rays of the sun) or the stories of people living along the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline (Roura). He last performed two years ago at the Karlovy Vary festival Witnesses of Putin, a documentary about the beginning of the era of the current Russian president.
Ancient tragedy
Mansky met Mikhail Gorbachev for less than two years. “He’s my hero,” he admits. The eighty-nine-year-old politician lives on the outskirts of Moscow and in the public interest. “He lives the life of an old but successful man who has accomplished a lot. It changed the world of the twentieth century, “Mansky concludes.
The former Soviet leader, the author of perestroika, who helped demolish the communist Eastern bloc, is disappointed with developments in his country. “It’s a fairy tale about how you lived in paradise,” the document reads. “And now in hell,” Gorbachev adds.
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“He has given people freedom and they are cursing him now. It seems to me like an ancient tragedy, “notes the director. According to him, today Gorbachev is a tired man with his life, who let the staff into his world of loneliness, frustration, but also the joy of freedom.
Man behind marble
“One day Gorbachev will have monuments all over the world. Sometimes they will arise soon, elsewhere – as in Russia – it will take much longer for people to understand what this man has done for history. But behind cold bronze or marble, I wanted to see a man who decided to make the world a better place to live, “says Mansky.
The film with the title Gorbachev. Paradise to enter in the spring, according to the Czech co-producer, ideally in March – on the occasion of Gorbachev’s ninetieth birthday.
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