Russia 1985-1999 TraumaZone: BBC release date of new Adam Curtis documentary, trailer, and how to watch

Journalist and Bafta award-winning filmmaker Adam Curtis has created a new series of seven films, about not just the end of communism but the failure of democracy too.

RUSSIA 1985-1999 TRAUMAZONE, which is stylised in capital letters, sees the Hypernormalisation director wade through little seen archive footage of Russia and the Soviet Union at the end of the 20^th Century and the turn of the 21^st.

Here’s everything you need to know about RUSSIA 1985-1999 TRAUMAZONE ahead of its BBC iPlayer release on Thursday 13 October.

What is it about?

TraumaZone is an effort to capture a kind of emotional history of what it felt like to live through the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The official synopsis explains that “at the start of the 1990s the Soviet Union - one the largest empires in the world - imploded. It was not a slow collapse like the British Empire, but one that collapsed suddenly - in just a few months.”

“In the west we didn’t really see or understand what then happened because we were blinded by victory in the cold war. In reality what the Russian people experienced was a profound disaster which left behind it deep scars and a furious anger - that led to what is happening in Russia now and in Ukraine.”

According to the BBC, the series is “the story how a society of millions of people stopped believing in all politics. Not just communism, but democracy too. Something that no-one else has experienced in the modern world. Yet.”

Its full title is Russia 1985-1999 TraumaZone: What It Felt Like to Live Through the Collapse of Communism and Democracy.

Who is Adam Curtis?

Adam Curtis is a filmmaker and journalist whose work is characterised by use of collage – he intercuts between different archive footage to try and create a sense of mood to convey different ideas about sociology, psychology, and political history.

Some of his previous work includes Hypernormalisation, Can’t Get You Out of My Head, and Pandora’s Box.

Is there a trailer for RUSSIA 1985-1999 TRAUMAZONE?

Yes, there is! It was shared by the musician Grimes on twitter. (I’m not quite sure why.)

When and how can I watch RUSSIA 1985-1999 TRAUMAZONE?

The series will be exclusive to BBC iPlayer, and will premiere with every film available at once as part of a boxset on Thursday 13 October.

How many films comprise RUSSIA 1985-1999 TRAUMAZONE?

There are seven films (or episodes, if you like) to TraumaZone. Each are an hour long, and all will be available on iPlayer as part of a boxset.

Where was the archive footage for the series found?

The official synopsis for TraumaZone explains that “since the late 1980s BBC crews have filmed all across USSR/Russia, but only a tiny fraction of their material was ever used for news reports. The rest lay unseen in cupboards in Moscow.

Tens of thousands of hours of raw footage was sifted through and edited together by Curtis in the hope of creating “a vivid record of everyday life in a collapsing empire”.

The footage itself records “inside the Kremlin to the frozen mining cities in the Arctic circle, the tiny villages of the vast steppes of Russia and the strange wars fought in the mountains and forests of the Caucasus.”

Where can I watch Hypernormalisation?

You can currently watch Hypernormalisation for free on BBC iPlayer. It’s also available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video.

Curtis’ 2021 series Can’t Get You Out Of My Head is also currently available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

Why should I watch RUSSIA 1985-1999 TRAUMAZONE?

Curtis is an interesting and unusual documentarian, and he’s turning his eye to the events of an era that continue to have long lasting repercussions.