Novaya Gazeta

Putin had been preparing his country for the big war long before it started. Since 2012, a series of repressive laws were passed, labelling everyone who publicly disagreed with the official narrative as „foreign agent“. In these circumstances, a group of independent Russian media and activists are trying to resist and continue their work. Right after the invasion their work becomes virtually impossible. Shot during one decisive year, before and after the invasion, the new film by fearless filmmaker Askold Kurov (The Trial - The State of Russia vs. Oleg Sentsov) portrays the last defenders of democracy in Russia and gives a glimpse of hope for another future.

The film tells about the former journalist of the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers, adviser to the Roscosmos state corporation Ivan Safronov. On July 7, 2020, Safronov was arrested, charged with high treason and placed in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. So far, several months after Ivan's arrest, neither he, nor the defense, nor the public have been presented with a single piece of evidence of the journalist's guilt.

By the beginning of the war in Chechnya, the legendary Major Izmailov worked in the military registration and enlistment office of the city of Zhukovsky. Having buried the first conscript who died during the storming of Grozny, he refused to send 18-year-old children to death and went to Chechnya himself to take out the prisoners. And he freed at least 174 people. The film uses a rare chronicle of the Chechen wars from the private archives of mothers who were looking for their sons in Chechnya, as well as negotiating officers from the working group on the exchange of prisoners. For the first time, the heroes of the film tell in detail what they had to go to to free people from captivity on both sides.

15 years ago, our colleague, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, was killed. Today, for the first time, we are telling the whole story of the investigation that we have been conducting all these years.

A film about the presidential campaign of Grigory Yavlinsky in the 2018 elections. Anna Artemyeva, a correspondent for Novaya Gazeta, spent a month at Yavlinsky's headquarters, accompanying him on his election trips. Much that the presidential candidate warned about then is coming true: the pension reform, the economic crisis, the change in the basic law, the irremovability of power ... In the 2018 elections, 77% of voters voted for Putin. For Yavlinsky - 1%. The film tells about the doomed attempt of a decent person to warn his country and fight for it in modern political realities.

Vladena Sandy, a survivor of the war in Chechnya between 1994 and 1998, studies her traumatic memories in order to transcend and transform them via the art of cinema.

Siberia stands as Russia's most abundant macroregion in terms of natural resources, yet paradoxically, it grapples with significant disadvantages. Boasting 88% of the nation's natural gas reserves, only 16.8% of households have access to this vital resource—lower than anywhere else in the country. Historically, the state has extracted resources from local residents, and recently, this trend has escalated to include the relocation of residents themselves, sending them to Ukraine. As a compensation for fathers, husbands, and sons being sent to the front lines, their families receive firewood to endure the harsh winter of 2022-2023 without freezing. Correspondents from Novaya Gazeta traverse Siberia, engaging with ordinary residents, local officials, and the families of those mobilized, delving into their perspectives on poverty, the ongoing special operation, and the contentious necessity of sending their loved ones to the front lines.