East of Paradise (2005)
• December 10th, 2005 • 1h 48min
Documentary
Overview
Filmmaker Lech Kowalski explores his belief that struggle is "the epitome of living" in this documentary which compares the wildly different life experiences of himself and his mother. Kowalski's mother came of age in Poland during the early stages of World War II, and after failed attempts to outrun both Nazi and Russian forces she and her family were sent to a Soviet concentration camp, where inmates were tortured, mistreated, and starved to the point where some ate their own lice in a desperate struggle to survive. Kowalski also depicts his own self-inflicted season in hell during his years on the New York City punk rock scene as he wallowed in the sordid underbelly of drug addiction, pornography, prostitution, and streetwise decadence. On both stories, Kowalski finds a message of hope and strength in the midst of almost certain peril.
Make sure to check your pop-up blocker!!
Trailer
Similar Movies
Once in the XX Century
Released on: 2004-08-03
Documentary, Comedy, History, Fantasy
The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the failure of Communism has been symbolically documented...
The Arrow of Time
Released on: 2017-10-03
Documentary
President Mikhail Gorbachev recounts the end of the Cold War and the reduction of nuclear arms.
Braguino
Released on: 2017-11-01
Documentary
In the middle of the Siberian taiga, 450 miles from the nearest village, live two families : the Bra...
Panoramas
Released on: 2019-11-29
Documentary
In 1829 the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt attempted a russian-siberian expedition. Humboldt trav...
Das ist alles
Released on: 2001-10-30
Documentary
Portrait of a Russian village near Kaliningrad and its multiethnic inhabitants.
Beyond the White
Released on: 2021-09-24
Documentary, Drama, History
In Northern Russia, a few dozen people still live in their traditional houses surrounded by water, s...
Gulag
Released on: 1999-07-10
Documentary
Documentary examining Stalin's Gulag. Between the October Revolution and Stalin's death in 1953, mil...
Siberian Love
Released on: 2017-11-16
Documentary
After 20 years of living in Berlin, the director Olga Delane goes back to her roots in a small Siber...
Man with a Movie Camera
Released on: 1929-05-12
Documentary
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzli...
MIGNOR
Released on: 1990-01-01
Documentary
Showing Sergei Parajanov at the end of his life, the film depicts the suffering of a genius against ...
Rasputin: Murder in the Tsar's Court
Released on: 2016-12-10
Documentary, History, TV Movie
St. Petersburg, Russia, December 30th, 1916. Grigori Rasputin is assassinated. The story of the humb...
The Alaska-Siberian Expedition
Released on: 1912-05-20
Documentary
Captain Kleinschmidt leads an expedition sponsored by the Carnegie Museum to the arctic regions of A...
Our March
Released on: 1970-01-01
Documentary, History, War
Compilation short film about the Communist Revolution and Soviet Union.
Little Potato
Released on: 2017-03-11
Documentary
Wes Hurley's autobiographical tale of growing up gay in Soviet Union Russia, only to escape with his...
Heroes of the Soviet New Wave
Released on: 2016-10-22
Music, Documentary
The film tells about the birth of a new wave in the USSR under a strict political regime and about t...
Stalin: Man of Steel
Released on: 2003-01-01
Documentary, History
Emmy Awards nominee for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research: Multi-faceted por...
Psychiatry in Russia
Released on: 1955-01-01
Documentary
In 1955, Albert Maysles traveled by motorcycle throughout Russia. During this trip, he shot what was...
Stalin's Last Plot
Released on: 2011-08-26
Documentary, History, TV Movie
January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish docto...
Trotsky: Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary
Released on: 2009-01-27
Documentary
This film examines Trotsky, the revolutionary; venerated and reviled, loved, hated, feared. Archive ...