RUSSIA VS LAWYERS
RUSSIA VS LAWYERS
Trailer
The focus is on the lawyer Mikhail Benyash, one of the many who have been listed as a «foreign agent» by the Russian authorities. For years, he represented protesters, opposition journalists and bloggers in court and eventually became a civil activist himself, with all the consequences in the form of persecution by a repressive system. But Benyash is not alone in his efforts to resist state violence. In addition to him, in different cities of Russia there is a whole team of human rights lawyers trying to protect ordinary people from judicial arbitrariness. Director Masha Novikova follows her protagonists across the country, from subtropical Sochi to far eastern Khabarovsk, and paints portraits not only of fearless advocates, but also of their clients. Political stars like Alexei Navalny are not among them. Lawyers defend a schoolboy detained for an anarchist leaflet or a feminist artist who painted a woman's vagina and was accused of «LGBT propaganda». Modern Don Quixotes, well aware of the fact they cannot win, the protagonists continue to fight the system, because if not them, then who?
Text: Ksenia Reutova
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Special Event:
Veranstaltungshinweis:
SlowTalk: Talk about the Film RUSSIA VS LAWYERS
Fr 10.11. 17:00 Uhr | Slow, GLAD-HOUSE
Language: Russian, with German translation
A cooperation with the German Sacharow-Society.
MASHA NOVIKOVA
ALEXANDRA IVANOVA
MARIA URIKH
MARTYNAS BIALOBŽESKIS
Masha Novikova - Masha Novikova was born in 1956 in Moscow, USSR. She studied pedagogy at the University of Moscow. And later worked as a teacher Russian language and literature. In Kazachstan she worked as a director-assistant in a German drama theater. Short before the fall of the Berlin Wall she came to the Netherlands, since then she has been living and working in Amsterdam. First Masha Novikova worked as interpretot and as a teacher Russian. She also worked as a guide in the 'Szar Peter House' in Zaandam. Later Masha started to work as an executive producer for Dutch television. At the same time she studied by Stefan Mayakowski at the 'Kunstweb' camera, script writing and filmdirection.
In 2005 she directed her first film 'Fallen Engel', documentary about traffic in East -European women who were brought to the Netherland to work as prostitues. She did work in Chechnya for documentary by Leo de Boer entitled 'Train to Grozny'. Driven by a feeling of shame about her own country, she has felt very much involved with the Chechnyan war ever since. She also filmed in the other post-Soviet countries, such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Lithuania. She is especially interested in the themes that tell about the individuals in dictatorial state, the influence of war and revolutions on an ordinary citizen. Together with her three daughters, she runs film production company NOVDOC.