East Side Story (1997, documentary) - Ranga and Horn's fascinating - and fascinated - doc. of the Soviet musical

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This grainy DVD cover for Dana Ranga's East Side Story was the best promotional material for the film that I was able to scrape up

From the 1930s to the fall of USSR, about 40 musicals were produced in the East Block. East Side Story portrays these films' audiences, along with the difficulties that went into their creation.

The film is made by Dana Ranga (I Am in Space (2012), documentary), co-written with Andrew Horn (We Are Twisted Fucking Sister! (2014), documentary). It exists in a TV version and in a longer version, which is the one I saw. The TV version probably suffices, as Ranga doesn't draw long conclusions based on his material in East Side Story.
The documentary contains many long clips from the propagandistic Soviet musicals, also known as 'tractor musicals', which Ranga and Horn are clearly extremely fascinated by, - and they are fascinating in their own peculiar way. 
The interview subjects contribute with each their own expertise and opinion about them. The film encourages its audience to make up his or her own mind about these musicals and about the concept of art in general.

This is a video which claims to have the best Soviet music of the 1960s - check it out

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[East Side Story premiered 25 June (USA) and in its most usual version runs 75 minutes. I regrettably did not note down the length of the longer version that I saw. Shooting took place in Germany. Details about its release are extremely scarce online. 195 IMDb-users have given East Side Story a 7.3/10 rating.]

What do you think of East Side Story?