The Long Way Home: When Soviet Rock Met the West

In this episode of She's All Over the Place, I had the wonderful opportunity to sit and chat with the producer, Steven Lawrence, to explore The Long Way Home: Remastered and Expanded (2026) Michael Apted's long-lost documentary about Soviet underground rock legend Boris Grebenshchikov and his extraordinary 1988 journey from Leningrad to the West during the early days of Glasnost.

Filmed at a moment of rare optimism inside the USSR, the documentary follows Grebenshchikov as he records an album with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), alongside Annie Lennox, Chrissie Hynde, Ray Cooper, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, becoming one of the first Soviet musicians to collaborate openly with Western rock stars.

Remastered in 4K with new 5.1 sound and expanded with a newly created epilogue, the film now brings Boris's story up to the present: his disillusionment with post-Soviet Russia, his outspoken opposition to Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, and his eventual exile from his homeland.

We discuss the film's disappearance for more than three decades, its rediscovery through MoMA's Film Preservation Festival, and why The Long Way Home now feels less like a period piece and more like a warning, a memory, and a testament to the enduring power of music to resist censorship and tyranny.

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