CWT628: Steven Lawrence on ‘The Long Way Home: Remastered and Expanded’ (1989/2026)

Originally released at the end of the 1980s, Michael Apted's The Long Way Home documented a singular cultural moment: Soviet underground rock legend Boris Grebenshchikov recording in the West during the brief, hopeful era of Glasnost. Decades later, the film has been painstakingly remastered and expanded from the only surviving 16mm print. Producer Steven Lawrence, who supervised the restoration alongside original editor Susanne Rostock, spoke with me about rescuing a nearly lost film, revisiting history through a modern lens, and why music still matters.Apted also directed Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), which was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. His subsequent work included Gorillas in the Mist (1988), which earned Sigourney Weaver an Oscar. He also directed Nell (1994) and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999), among other things. Lawrence directed Sun City: Artists United Against Apartheid (1985), The INvisible Extinction (2022), and The Cat Rescuers (2018), as well as Tell Tchaikovsky the News: Rock in Russia (1987) for MTV and the Vis à Vis doc series for PBS. This interview was recorded for an article featured in VENTS Magazine online.