Silenced: Composers in Revolutionary Russia

"Every creative person in the Soviet Union was a victim of the regime," says writer and musicologist Levonn Hakobian in the opening moments of this stirring documentary, Silenced: Composers in Revolutionary Russia. While many artists were fleeing the Soviet regime, others decided to stay and attempt to create a new world—but the authorities' repressive stance on liberty of expression and creative output made this a nearly impossible task.

What would you have done in their place? Would you have chosen exile? Submission? Or a dangerous double life? Imagine the difficulties that musicians and artists faced in revolutionary Russia as composers and experts like Gidon Kremer, Andreas Seidel, and Igor Vorobyov offer their commentary over a soundtrack by forgotten figures like Nikolai Roslavets, Alexander Mosolov, and Arthur Lourié, victims of state censure whose work has faded from memory in the time since their death. The second volume in the Music, War, and Revolution trilogy, this film by Anne-Kathrin Peitz was the recipient of the Czech Crystal Prize at the 2017 Golden Prague International Television Festival.