A pirate radio station helped end the Cold War. No, really.
That the Cold War did not end in blood and tears was Radio Free Europe’s ultimate victory. “To Russia with Love” tells how it won the hearts and minds of the people behind the Iron Curtain and brought down the Communist rule over Eastern Europe. The story of Radio Free Europe has not been told on film so far. The documentary retells the story of Radio Free Europe from the point of view of the RFE journalists and their audience. It addresses topics like: What did it mean for a dissident to broadcast to the country they still called home, to fight against a government, which had forced them to leave? How much was their everyday life ruled by fear for the family members they had left behind, knowing that their own actions could possibly threaten their relatives in the East? “To Russia with Love” also pictures how communist regimes fought the station.
Editing
Archival footage woven like a smuggled tape reel
Production
Recreated broadcast booths feel deliciously analog
Writing
Dissidents' own words hit harder than any narrator could
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
RFE once broadcast coded messages to Soviet defectors using jazz records. The CIA loved a good drop.
This 2009 release arrived as Putin was tightening media screws—its timing feels almost prophetic now.
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