Assa

This irresistible cult film is full of Russian underground music, which reached a huge audience as a result. Legendary bands like Akvarium, Kino and Bravo caused shock waves in the late 1980s. Assa was even called “the film that brought down the Soviet Union”. Assa was groundbreaking in many ways. The soundtrack, on vinyl, was one of the first official releases of Russian rock music and the premiere became a massive show, the likes of which the USSR had never seen.

Assa is about a murderous fraudster in the Black Sea resort of Yalta, who becomes embroiled with some gangsters in 1980 after stealing a rare violin. The situation becomes more explosive when a gangster’s mistress becomes friends with a free-spirited punk rocker. Assa closes with an exceptional cameo: a performance by Viktor Tsoi, the 1980s pop icon that Leto is about, which IFFR screened two years ago.