The Event

In 1991, a failed coup d'état in Moscow, staged by communist reactionaries, led to the fall of the Soviet regime after 70 years. The Soviet Union disintegrated and the hammer and sickle were replaced with the red, blue and white tricolor. President Gorbachev was placed under arrest, radio channels broadcast nothing but Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, protesters surrounded Boris Yeltsin's home and thousand of confused, excited and desperate citizens flooded the streets of Leningrad. A quarter of a century later, through archival footage, acclaimed Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa returns to the "August Putsch" to critically examine the event hailed worldwide as "the birth of Russian democracy."