East Side Story

As a whole, the Iron Curtain countries were not known for their gaiety or joie de vivre, but between the cracks of stark socialist realism there somehow appeared a few films that offered their audiences escape, hope and hit songs - served up with colour, elaborate sets, extravagant musical numbers and sometimes even cinemascope and stereo sound. Were socialist musicals merely a way to make propaganda entertaining? Was it possible to portray socialist realism in genre that was considered "the most flagrant offspring of the capitalistic pleasure industry"? Focusing on films from the socialist republics, this film takes an all singing, all dancing peak, behind the Iron Curtain at the “politics of entertainment".