Virginia Film Festival

Fueled by the height of Cold War passions, hockey served as a form of propaganda in the Soviet Union and latent warfare on the international stage. The Soviet Union’s Red Army hockey team represented a sort of ideological bastion for their government that pushed its players to their personal, emotional, and professional limits. This documentary layers probing interviews with poignant archival footage to paint a fascinating and intricate portrait of these Red Army players. Director Gabe Polsky frames the experience largely through the eyes of its team captain Slava Fetisov, one of the most celebrated Soviet players of all time, who became a political enemy when he stood up the totalitarian system of both the State and the Team. Red Army turns a unique lens on the social and cultural transformation of the Soviet Union leading up to the fall of Communism, mirroring the rise and fall of the Red Army team. Discussion with director Gabe Polsky and Yuri Urbanovich (U.Va.)