According to Faraday, who was film correspondent for The Moscow Times during the mid-1990s, the turning point came during the years of perestroika, when Russian filmmakers achieved an unprecedented degree of freedom from managerial control. They immediately used their newfound liberty to dismantle the industry's central administrative structures in the name of artistic autonomy. Filmmakers were at last free to follow their own aesthetic criteria, and many began to orient their work entirely toward critical acclaim at festivals. But the unintended result of this revolution in the name of art was the alienation of the mass Russian audience. Today some filmmakers are attempting to regain a mass audience by celebrating and mythologizing national cultural identity, but the Russian film industry has never fully recovered from the 'revolt' of the filmmakers.

For this book Faraday has interviewed Russian filmgoers, critics, directors, and other industry insiders. Among those directors whose work he considers are Alexei Balabanov (The Castle), Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun), Karen Shaknazarov (American Daughter), Pyotr Todorovsky (Moscow Country Nights), and Marina Tsurtsumia (Only Death Comes for Sure). He also draws upon documentary evidence, including the Russian press and the diaries of Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice, Solaris).

Few predicted that the loosening of state ideological and institutional controls would threaten the survival of Russia's once-mighty film industry. Even today Lenin's often-quoted, if apocryphal, declaration that 'cinema is the most important of all the arts' remains emblazoned over the gateway to Mosfilm studios—but its relevance is in doubt at the start of a new millennium.