Joseph Brodsky

Fellow poets, excited ladies, the love of his life, Marina Basmanova, two psychiatric hospitals, KGB interrogations, a People's Court, prison, exile, forced emigration. All of this was Brodsky's Leningrad. The biography, which was written for, in Akhmatova's words, "our red-head". On the fourth of June 1972, when the plane carrying Brodsky took off from Pulkovo airport, this biography ended. And a new life began that almost no one in his homeland is aware of. Russia, America, Italy, Sweden, Finland - the filmmakers have traced the journey of their hero, perhaps the most well-traveled of all Russian writers. The places, that became his biography. And the people, that defined his fate.

A look at Benedict Yerofeyev, the elusive author of the Russian underground classic From Moscow to Pietushki, who has existed on the fringes of Soviet society for most of his life.

The film was shot in Venice, where two poet friends, Joseph Brodsky and Evgeny Rein, meet to walk along the embankments, sit in cafes, talking about poetry, language, Venice, Russia, the future, cats, and read their poems.

A 23-year-old man was tried for choosing poetry as his life's work. His poems and translations were professional. Many people thought so, but not literary officials. It was published sparingly. But in his place could be any talented or simply capable young man who chose the difficult path of serving the muses. Not only then, but now the young have a hard time. Who will take on the role of an arbitrator passing sentence: a poet is not a poet, an artist is not an artist? Maybe the artist has looked into the future, is incomprehensible to contemporaries, is not recognized by them, so what is to judge him?