A documentary by Robin Hessman. In Russian with English subtitles. Unrated. Opens Friday, September 9, at the Vancity Theatre

Director Robin Hessman spent most of the 1990s in post-Communist Russia, so, presumably, she knew some of her subjects in My Perestroika, an insightful documentary that follows the lives of five Muscovites just over 40—well-educated representatives of the last generation to get the full party line before the end of the Soviet Union.

These people were classmates at one inner-city school, and she had access to their home movies and much contemporaneous footage, woven together in a manner recalling Michael Apted’s Up series, with even less filmmaker intrusion.

Her most interesting subjects are Borya and Lyuba, married schoolteachers—significantly, they teach history at the same school—who had opposite responses to the Soviet regime: she conformed unthinkingly while he wore “USA” T-shirts to punk concerts. Their pal Ruslan, who helped found a popular band called NAIV, has since fallen off the grid, busking and giving banjo lessons to earn his daily blini. Single mom Olga is a self-described “apolitical” who lost a fiancé to mafia violence. And well-off Andrei runs a successful menswear business.

All five recall fascinating details about Soviet end days (perestroika means restructuring) and express cautious optimism about their country’s future while remaining critical of Vladimir Putin’s relentless consolidation of power. They remain admirably non-nostalgic about the days of Young Pioneers and newspapers full of farm-harvest reports and anti-Western invective while articulating precisely why their cohorts might miss the stability, no matter how illusory, provided by the USSR. Their standard of living has gradually gone up, but it’s hard not to notice that they look old for their ages and all smoke copiously, often in tight quarters with small children. Health care in Russia: sounds like the makings of another great documentary!

Watch the trailer for My Perestroika.