Russian Striptease

How do the Russian people react to the sexual freedom they obtained after the collapse of the communist regime? Polish filmmaker Andrzej Fidyk provides the answer in his documentary RUSSIAN STRIPTEASE: after seventy years of living in a cocoon of prudishness, sex is now an obsession to many Russians. Fidyk is particularly interested in the confusion this has caused. A decade ago, prostitution was considered a capitalist excrescence but is now seen as a prestigious job. Two girls who not so long ago would have been sent to join the communist Pioneers youth movement now apply at a 'striptease school', which - salient detail - is being led by a man who under communism earned his pay as a censor. The film supplies more examples of this disconcerting opportunism, but shuns every form of nostalgia by also paying attention to the sexual gloom under communism.