Very poignant and touching documentary on four poets who were incarcerated by their repressive regimes and speak out after their release on how they were tortured and blackmailed by their captors during their incarceration, how they kept their hopes alive, how they did not break and their lives post their release. The four poets are Nizatmedin Achmetov, Maria Elena Cruz Valera (from Cuba) Irina Ratoesjinkaja from Russia and Marcea Dinescu from Romania. Achmetov i suspect is also from Russia. What's with dictatorial regimes and their fear of the poets and hatred for their poems. India has also imprisoned a 81 year old poet on a trumped up charges and not given bail despite many people clamoring for his release on the grounds of his ill health.
Of the four poets above, the Romanian guy speaks very little, whereas the others recount tales of horror in the prison walls including isolation cells. The Russian lady says that they started a practise of smiling at each prisoner which lifted their spirits and when they were kept close to each other in a small cell violating their private space, they adopted a method of conversing in 19th century language with lot of respect for each other, so that in turn them a space.
.png)