"This documentary portrait explores the passionate spirit of Joseph Brodsky who defied all barriers to become one of the most interesting contemporary Russian poets of the 20th century. Interviews with scholars and friends of Brodsky trace his experience as the last Russian writer arrested by the KGB. He underwent a Kafkaesque trial and was exiled to Siberia. In 1972 he was exiled from his homeland and in 1987 won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Recordings of Brodsky reading his poems are the background of visual motifs and themes that have defined Brodsky as a resident of three "water cities": Leningrad, New York and Venice. His stance on poetry was heroic. He defended formal poetry rather than the free verse then popular in America. Every winter he traveled to Venice, a city that reminded him of his beloved St. Petersburg, and here he wrote the book called Watermark (Quay of the Incurables). He died in New York City in 1996 but was re-buried in Venice on the island of St. Michele. Co-production: Shibui Productions SLC and Studio AC Venezia Italy."