Repentance

Repentance was actually completed in 1984 but immediately banned for its allegorical treatment of Stalin era terror and how later generations covered up its crimes. The screenplay was sent to Eduard Shevardnadze, then First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, who showed it to Gorbachev; according to sources, Gorbachev was moved by the film, recalling his own grandfather's arrest under Stalin, and approved its release. It premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize and the Grand Prize of the Jury, then went into wide release across the Soviet Union, becoming a flagship film of the glasnost era. Who it's for: anyone curious about a Soviet classic that escaped a ban through a dictator's own approval and became a symbol of the glasnost era, critiquing Stalinism allegorically. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a plain, direct historical narrative, since the film works through allegory and surreal imagery.