Music: Yuri Shevchuk and the band DDT
On December 13 at 6:00 p.m., as part of Alexander Smolyansky’s “Berlin Encounters” series, the film“DDT: The 20th Century”(2026, 90 min, with English subtitles) will be screened.
This is the story of the 20th century—from World War I to the collapse of the Soviet Union—as seen through 20 songs by the band DDT and the fate of one family across four generations. Yuri Shevchuk’s voice and poetry guide both the protagonist and the viewer through the catastrophes of the past century. Each song in the film represents a separate episode in this story.
From Malevich’s “Black Square” to “The Black Dog of St. Petersburg”—this is how the film’s creator and director, Sergei Kuznetsov, defines the scope of the short 20th century. All the characters in the film are heroes from DDT’s songs. Each episode consists of a single track and a unique artistic approach.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO TELL THE STORY OF 20TH-CENTURY RUSSIA THROUGH TWENTY DDT SONGS?
Director Sergei Kuznetsov has done just that.
The film will not be released in Russian theaters or on digital platforms.
That’s why the Berlin screening is a rare opportunity to see this film and talk with its director.
The film centers on the fate of one family across four generations. The protagonist returns from the war in Afghanistan and tries to understand what has happened to his country, his loved ones, and himself. Along with him, the viewer experiences the revolution, Stalin’s crimes, the war, the Thaw, Afghanistan, perestroika, and the events of the early 1990s.
Major historical events enter people’s homes, tear families apart, and send young men off to war. But this is not a history lesson. The film is almost entirely devoid of dialogue: the viewer is addressed through the texts of Yuri Shevchuk, the music, human faces, and visual imagery.
Each of the twenty songs becomes a chapter in its own right—a small film within the larger film. Live-action sequences are interspersed with rare archival footage, collages, and hand-drawn, puppet, and clay animation. One segment resembles a Soviet poster brought to life, another—art-house cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, a third—a terrifying historical nightmare, and a fourth—a music video that suddenly turns into a drama.
The filmmakers drew upon a vast trove of archival material, including rare footage once thought to be lost. But the archive here is not merely a museum-style illustration: it collides with fictional imagery, animation, and live-action film, creating a reality of its own. The film echoes Marlen Khutsiev’s *July Rain*, Andrei Tarkovsky’s *The Mirror*, Alexei Balabanov’s *Brother*, and, of course, Alan Parker’s *The Wall* by Pink Floyd.
The film features “Don’t Shoot,” “Motherland,” “Foma,” “You Have a Son,” “Winds,” “White Night,” “Actress Vesna,” “Premonition of a Civil War,” and other songs by DDT. Some of them were written more than forty years ago, but today they are not perceived as mere nostalgia for Russian rock of the 1980s and 1990s. On the contrary: it seems as though they speak directly to our times—sometimes more clearly and honestly than the daily news.
Sergei Kuznetsov first conceived the film back in 2013. But work began in 2022, when DDT’s concerts in Russia were once again, as in Soviet times, effectively banned. The film took four years to make. The entire hour and a half is handcrafted: no neural network-generated footage or computer graphics.
Yuri Shevchuk summed up the essence of this work very precisely: this film is not about Shevchuk or DDT—it is a film about Russia. It offers a ruthless look at the country’s history, but without a cold historical judgment. The horrors are depicted with love and compassion for the people caught in the gears of history, struggling to preserve their dignity, their memory, and their ability to hear the plea: “Don’t shoot.”
Following the film, there will be a meet-and-greet and discussion with director Sergei Kuznetsov.
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