The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many in Russia's DIY punk scene fled to Tbilisi, Georgia. Mobilization only exacerbated that trend. This documentary follows the stories of some of those punks but also explores the complicated socio-economic effects they have on the city. The film is about the potential for punk and other similar subcultures to make connections even across otherwise tense political borders.

A documentary about Boris Nemtsov, a prominent figure of Russian political opposition and an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. Nemtsov was murdered in Moscow in February of 2015.

An intimate portrait of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov — once Deputy Prime Minister and “an heir of President Yeltsin”, later an uncompromising adversary of Putin — that was assassinated near the Kremlin in February 2015. Election campaigns and hotel beds, protest rallies and office routine, train compartments and courtrooms, night walks and police vans – you have never seen any politician so close. This is a story how a journalist assignment turns into a genuine friendship.

An enlightening investigative report on Rosatom, Russia's powerful atomic energy agency and Vladimir Putin's formidable geopolitical tool for increasing his influence around the world.

In 1930, during what became known as the Industrial Party Trial, some members of the Soviet technical elite were tried for plotting to form a counter-revolutionary party. This documentary depicts that trial, in which a dozen men are prosecuted for crimes against the Russian Revolution. They promptly confess and are given the chance to address the court with an explanation. Full of remorse, they plead for the opportunity to pay off their debt to society by working. Then they wait for their sentence.

Pussy Riot make a comeback after a long absence to stand with Ukraine. Their story and their struggle are told through archival footage and interviews with the group’s members.

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.

Russia is a highly developed, wired, and educated nation, but endures third-world levels of corruption and a repressive, autocratic government. Many Russians explain this paradox by citing the Russian soul, a unique national mindset, born out of their turbulent history that wants dictatorship. Is that possible, or are free speech and democracy universal values?

An in-depth examination to Keith Doolin, a former long-distance truck driver with no previous criminal convictions, currently incarcerated on death row in San Quentin prison around 20 miles north of San Francisco. He was convicted of the murder of two women in 1995 and after 20 years maintaining his innocence whilst awaiting execution he is still in limbo, going through California’s capital appeals system. Keith Doolin’s case is now a race against time. In late 2016, voters in California elected to speed up the death penalty process whilst Doolin’s defence lawyers claim they have uncovered credible new key evidence that will exonerate Doolin and could save his life and free him.

Although set in the southern Netherlands and Belgium, the story draws from murders that began in Moscow Oblast, Russia, in 2014. Fedorov, a young man of Russian descent orphaned and raised by his uncle, graduated from a technical university near The Hague but, afflicted by worsening somatic symptoms, failed to secure work. Returning to Russia under sanctions seemed impossible. He wandered the streets, smoking cannabis and throwing stones at drunks. Within this self-made prison he met Helena, a Flemish girl, on an online forum. She lured him into smuggling soap and chemicals to the black market in Liège. The next month he met Helena and two female accomplices at Liège-Guillemins Station. Yet at their suburban hideout—an abandoned factory—he was forced into his first murder and dismemberment. Only then did he realise he had entered their abyss of crime, irrevocably damned. Where will their fates turn in the next manipulative, large-scale ensemble sequence?

In 1995, former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin and ex-CIA Director William Colby collaborated in an unexpected way. They made a video game. The Great Game traces how both men rose to the tops of their fields following World War II, before falling out of favor with their respectives agencies — on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. For Kalugin, a growing discontent with the KGB’s treatment of Russians radicalized him against the institution. Meanwhile William Colby, an OSS operative and the CIA’s man on the ground in Vietnam, was fired by President Ford after testifying before Congress about controversial CIA programs like MKULTRA and CoIntelPro. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, both living on American soil, Colby and Kalugin played themselves in Spycraft, a multi-million dollar game that was among the most advanced of its time — and is now almost entirely forgotten.

"Myth" was the callsign of Vasyl Slipak, the world-famous Ukrainian opera singer, a soloist of the Parisian National Opera, who left the big stage to become a volunteer, a warrior fighting in the East of Ukraine. The Hero of Ukraine, the Knight of the Order "Golden Star" and the Order "For Courage", Vasyl Slipak gave his life, defending Ukraine. This documentary is a real story of heroism and self-sacrifice, which makes us think over our own lives.

Khodorkovsky, the richest Russian, challenges President Putin. A fight of the titans begins. Putin warns him. But Khodorkovsky comes back to Russia knowing that he will be imprisoned, once he returns. When I heard about it, I asked myself: why didn't he stay in exile with a couple of billions? Why did he do that? A personal journey to Khodorkovsky.

After 20 years of living in Berlin, the director Olga Delane goes back to her roots in a small Siberian village, where she is confronted with traditional views of relationships, life and love. The man is the master in the home; the woman’s task is to beget children and take care of the household (and everything else, too). Siberian Love provides unrivaled insights into the (love) life of a Siberian village and seeks the truth around the universal value of traditional relationships.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first politicians to congratulate Donald Trump on his election as president of the United States in 2016, but over time the relationship between the two heads of state has had its ups and downs. Are they friends or enemies? Has their mutual admiration turned into mutual distrust?