Based on the true story of a gulag survivor, a Stalinst lawyer discovers to his cost the lengths the establishment will go to in order to protect the status quo. A darkly humourous and disturbing exploration of the absurdities of totalitarianism.
Summoned with a blood-written note smuggled out of a prison block, an idealistic state lawyer (Alexander Kuznetsov) pushes past the prison’s leery authorities to interview an elderly, broken-down Bolshevik (Aleksandr Filippenko).
Determined to expose the miscarriages of justice that landed the man in confinement, the lawyer finds the eye of the state turned on him instead, as an ever-tightening net encircles his investigation.
Set at the height of the great purge and drenched in the paranoia of Stalin’s police state, filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s latest triumph is a chilling, Kafkaesque thriller about the impunity of power and matter-of-fact horrors of fascism.
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Starring: Alexander Kuznetsov, Anatoliy Beliy & Aleksandr Filippenko
Year: 2025
Language: In Russian with English subtitles
Country: Germany / Latvia / Ukraine
Running time: 1hr 58mins