Idéale audience

Mstislav Rostropovich, the indomitable bow

Rostropovich, who had already achieved international recognition in the 1950s, was forced to flee his country in 1972. He defended Solzhenitsyn who was expelled from the USSR for having published the “Gulag archipelago”. Deprived from of his citizenship by the Soviet authorities, Rostropovich settled in Paris and Washington. This gave birth to his legend. To tell this extraordinary story, Bruno Monsaingeon’s film gathers rare archives and new testimonies from his daughters, Olga and Elena Rostropovich, and friends, Natalia and Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Marta Casals-Istomin and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky.