In the movie, performance artists, heavy metal musicians, professional and amateur dancers, an experimental theatre director, a feted choreographer, a ballerina-turned-stripper, and a would-be Russian Hugh Hefner all share the same view: that the Soviet system had fundamentally de-sexed men and women and that Russia was far behind the West in terms of sexual freedom.
The film balances the thoughtful and deeply considered opinions of Ginzburg's, mostly young, subjects with multiple scenes of nudity as they act on their new found freedoms.
Set in the years immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union it imagines a fable-like reality in which a former poetry teacher turned advertising man helps promote an empty shell as the new leader for the country.
In 2019 Ginzburg completed work on Empire V (2022), a fantastical satire of the Russian elite, that portrays them as an ancient tribe of vampires who feed on humanity's desire for wealth.
As part of RFE/RL’s comprehensive strategy to counter Kremlin disinformation, Votvot features cultural content inaccessible inside Russia from creators who are often banned because of their criticism of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Now what?” Daniel Kimmel writing for Variety, however, noted that “the film is not endorsing the rationalizations and banalities of the creators of Soviet erotica, but simply recording a moment when everything seemed possible and no-one knew how long it would last….
Ginzburg makes his clearest point when he interviews a young Moscow prostitute who plies her trade because she wants to afford the makeup and clothes she sees on other women."
Попытки режиссера противостоять критике с помощью положительных рецензии западной прессы, потонули в грубых выкриках типа "Кого мы вообще слушаем?"
Civic consciousness in this new system of priorities is inextricably linked with the body.” “… картина Гинзбурга производит грандиозное впечатление уже просто как документ эпохи.
На глазах зрителя разрушаются нынешние стереотипы о том, что краткий период политической свободы в России был сбоем по фазе, случайностью, а то и имитацией, розыгрышем.