In Progress
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December 1991: The Soviet head of state, Mikhail Gorbachev, holds long-distance calls with
political leaders from the Western world. Shortly after, Gorbachev speaks on television, stating:
“Hereby I quit my position as President of the USSR.“
It is quite an unexpected finale for the grandiose communist vision of the “new era” that
kept the world busy since the October revolution in 1917. Only in 1975 the utopia seemed
more concrete than ever: the communist world reached the peak of its geographical
expansion, controlling or influencing almost half of the planet’s population.
But why did the Soviet Empire collapse after a 16-year countdown? What forces were there behind
the creeping erosion and the sudden disintegration? Why could no one foresee the unthinkable?
For the first time, this story is told chronologically, across the borders of the involved
countries and from within these countries: by the people who were there, who lived
through it, who made it happen.
Produced in collaboration with Eastern European writers, directors and coproducers, this
European saga will be launched in 2011 on television, the Internet, and in print.
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“Some 5.4 million people have died. Every people have to know what happens here. It has to know who holds in his hand a mobile.” (Frank, former miner – D.R. of Congo) |
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