KISSING GORBACIOV

Italy | 2023 | 97 min

CCCP in the USSR – this is how one could epitomize the historical scope of KISSING GORBACIOV, the document of a crazy season of Italian music. Creative streams would run throughout the 1980’s against the tide, in spite of the apparent hedonism of the Reagan era. The band composed of Ferretti and Zamboni, Annarella and Fatur would sing the praises of a Soviet Union of the soul, an ideal detached from reality. Mariani’s and D’Alife’s documentary deals with an impossible cultural exchange between Apulia and Russia, the journey of CCCP and Litfiba into the heart of a country in disarray, lost between crises and an overdue wish for changes. Those were the years of perestroika and the umpteenth illusion bound for disaster. Yet, for a fleeting, crazy moment, when everyone is bewildered by CCCP, everything seems to be in the right place. Seeing Ferretti and co. reunited to discuss that era is something that goes beyond the mere testimony: it is the splinter of a past future that never came true but still has a lot to say. (e.s.)