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DISCO AND ATOMIC WAR

by Jaak Kilmi

synopsis

Did disco cause the collapse of the Soviet Union? The story of a strange kind of information war, where a totalitarian regime stands face to face with the heroes of popular culture. Despite a ban on western media, from the 1950s onward many Estonias were able to easily pick up Finnish radio and television broadcasts from across the border with homemade antennas. Western popular culture had an incomparable role shaping Soviet children’s worldviews in those days—in ways that now seem slightly odd. Finnish television was a window to the world of capitalism’s pleasures that the authorities could not block.

international title: Disco and Atomic War
original title: Disko ja tuumasõda
country: Estonia, Finland
year: 2009
genre: docu-fiction
directed by: Jaak Kilmi
film run: 80'
cast: Hagi Shein, Edward Lucas, Georgi Potsheptsov, Esko Salminen, Sakari Kiuru, Arvo Sildnik, Nikolai Haug, Gerda Viira, Oskar Vuks, Toomas Pool
cinematography by: Manfred Vainokivi
film editing: Lauri Laasik
costumes designer: Liisi Eesmaa
music: Ardo Ran Varres
producer: Kiur Aarma, Aleksi Bardy, Annika Sucksdorff
production: Ruut Pictures (Eetriüksus Ltd), Helsinki Filmi Oy
backing: Estonian Film Foundation, Finnish Film Foundation, Estonian Cultural Endowment, Estonian Ministry of Culture, Estonian Public Broadcasting, YLE, Eesti Ekspress, Radio Kuku, Viking Line

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