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Into the Cold Dawn recounts the life of the composer Dimitri Shostakovich from the perspective of a film director who is shooting a movie about him. In 1961 the song Into the Cold Dawn, composed by Shostakovich for the film Der Gegenplan and sung by Yuri Gagarin, was the first music in space.

While editing the film, the director shifts through scenes from feature films for which Shostakovich wrote the music during Stalin´s rule. The director meets and interviews family members and companions of the composer, such as Mstislav Rostropovich. Key moments in the life of Shostakovich are re-enacted with marionette puppets.

At the end of his investigation, the director realizes that he is unable to draw a clear-cut portrait of the composer - what his interview partners tell him is just too contradictory.