Moscow, winter 2021: At TV Rain, the only remaining independent channel, young journalists have been branded “foreign agents”— targeted for surveillance or worse, and required to tag their reporting with a disclaimer that they are serving foreign powers. Regardless: Ksyusha furiously produces and edits stories to distract herself from her fellow-journalist fiancé’s imprisonment; Anya hosts everyday heroes of resistance on her interview show, while shielding both her sanity and her young daughter from the regime’s relentless “fuckery”; Sonya produces the “Hi, You’re a Foreign Agent” podcast at her kitchen table while beholding her empty living room (why buy a sofa when who knows what will happen to her?); Alesya fends off anxiety that her office has been bugged, while hiding her relationship with her girlfriend from her traditional mother. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is just weeks away, as these Gen-Z heroines confront propagandist absurdity and personal endangerment, fighting for the soul of a country they love to the bitter end.
Introduced by Liesl Gerntholtz, Managing Director, PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center, the Q&A features Julia Loktev, Anna Nemzer, and Ksenia Mironov.
NOTE: The Q&A follows the second section of the film (FIRST WEEK OF WAR: Chapters 4-5). It is strongly recommended that viewers see the first section (CRACKDOWN: Chapters 1-3) before this event.
Liesl Gerntholtz is the managing director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center at PEN America. She is a South African human rights lawyer who spent the early part of her career working for the South African Human Rights Commission and the Commission on Gender Equality in post-apartheid South Africa. She was the head of the HIV Litigation Unit of the AIDS Law Project and the Director of the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre. In those capacities, she led high impact, strategic litigation to advance the human rights of people living with HIV and women affected by violence. She has lived in the US since 2008, but remains committed to her South African roots, serving on the boards of several South African human rights organisations.
Julia Loktev was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrated to the U.S. at age 9. She has made both fiction and documentary. THE LONELIEST PLANET starring Gael Garcia Bernal, screened at the New York Film Festival, received the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Film Festival, nominations for Best Director at Independent Spirit Awards, and Best Feature at Gotham Awards, and was chosen by IndieWire as one of the “100 Best Films of Last Decade.” DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT premiered at Cannes in Directors’ Fortnight, received two Gotham Awards nominations, and earned the Someone to Watch Award at Independent Spirit Awards. Her documentary MOMENT OF IMPACT won the Sundance Film Festival Documentary Directing Award and the Grand Prize at Cinéma du Reél, screened in New Directors/New Films at MoMA, and was an Independent Spirit Awards Truer Than Fiction nominee. Julia is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Emerging Icons Award from the George Eastman Museum.
Anna Nemzer (“Anya” in the film) is a documentary filmmaker and a senior host at TV Rain, hosting a political talk show, Politics: Direct Line, and a new show called Who’s Got the Power? focusing on activists trying to create a better society even as Russia becomes more and more oppressive. When Anya was 11, her mom and stepdad, both academics, emigrated, eventually settling in the U.S. Anya made a decision to stay in Russia, living with her grandparents. When we meet Anya, she still lives in the apartment she grew up in, sharing it with her own family now, including her 10-year old daughter Lilka, and a pet chinchilla. A regular cast of friends are always hanging out in the kitchen, a tight community of journalists and activists.
When we meet her, Ksenia Mironova (“Ksyusha” in the film) is a 23-year-old reporter at TV Rain and at the center of a group of young journalists. She works for several shows, including a feminist show called Women on Top. Her fiancé Ivan Safronov has been jailed on charges of “treason.” He’s been awaiting trial over a year, and the government still has provided no information about the charges. Other journalists constantly mention Ivan Safronov, worrying it could happen to them, which is exactly the point. He will eventually be sentenced to 22 years in prison.