DESCRIPTION

In the Soviet Union, a colourful crowd of artists, musicians, freaks, vagabonds, and other long-haired dropouts created their own system, which connected those who believed in peace, love, and freedom.

More than forty years later, a group of eccentric hippies from Estonia take a road trip to Moscow where the hippies still gather annually on June 1 for a celebration that is related to the tragic event in 1971, when thousands of Soviet hippies were arrested by the KGB. The journey through time and dimensions goes deep into the psychedelic underground world in which these people strived for freedom.

Soviet Hippies (2017) is an insightful journey about the hippie movement in the Soviet Union by Estonian writer and director Terje Toomistu. The film, which was produced in Estonia in collaboration with Germany and Finland, reveals unseen archives, rocking music from the Soviet underground, psychedelic animations, and, of course, the historical story of the little-known movement. 

The film has been circulating at nearly thirty film festivals globally for the past couple of years, winning several awards and mentions. 

The film is part of public program Sekretiki: Digging Up Soviet Underground Culture, 1966–1985 taking place at Garage Museum of Contemporary art.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Terje Toomistu is an Estonian documentary filmmaker and an anthropologist, who has also worked as a writer and curator. She holds a PhD degree in Ethnology as well as double MA degrees (cum laude) in Ethnology and in Communication Studies from University of Tartu. She has been a visiting fellow at University of Sanata Dharma in Indonesia, Fulbright scholar at UC Berkeley in U.S. and a visiting researcher at University of Amsterdam. Her primary areas of research expertise are Indonesian gender and sexuality and the late Soviet non-conformist youth, specifically the Soviet hippie movement. Her filmography includes Wariazone (2011), Archeology of Ayahuasca (2016) and her most recent award-winning documentary Soviet Hippies (2017). Her work has been featured widely in international press, including The Guardian and The Economist.

HOW TO TAKE PART

The film will be shown on the TV RAIN channel. It will be available on the TV RAIN website on April 25 at 23:00.

The film has Russian subtitles.

The film is accessible to deaf and hard of hearing viewers.