Letter To Anna

The Story of Journalist Politkovskaya’s Death. 2008

On October 7, 2006, Vladimir Putin’s 54th birthday, the journalist Anna Politkovskaja is shot in the lift of her Moscow home. Anna’s death is a personal tragedy: she has just learnt that she is to become a grandmother. But the murder is also a political act, for Politkovskaja was the President’s fiercest critic. Why was she shot in cold blood, this elegant woman who was always on the side of the weak and those who had no rights? Was it because of the stance she took against the war in Chechnya – a war that was virtually ignored in the world at large and yet became a turning point in Anna’s life? – LETTER TO ANNA – a personal quest, but also a political one.

Press Review

Coca, the Dove from Chechnya

Europe in Denial of a War. 2005

Her parents called Zainap Gashaeva “Coca” – the dove. Born in exile in Kasakhstan, she became a business woman and reared four children. Zainap has been documenting what have become daily events since 1994: abduction, torture, murders.

What has been declared an “anti-terrorist operation” by President Putin has taken on features of genocide. Up to thirty percent of the Chechen population may have been killed. The world is looking away; be it out of ignorance, helplessness or opportunism.

Together with other women, Zainap has been hiding hundreds of videotapes. She is now bringing these tapes to Western Europe to serve as evidence so that the guilty - on whichever side – are punished. Is she tilting at windmills?

This documentary makes for gripping viewing.
Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 02/21/05
A shattering film!
Kira Taszman, Screen international, 02/19/05

What was striking was that in the whole film there were no men. They are either dead, asleep or tending to beehives. The women are doing the fighting by their own means.
Thumsucker, The script factory, 02/22/05

Citizen Khodorkovsky

Who is left to take on Vladimir Putin? 2015

Ten years in Russian penal colonies have marked Mikhail Khodorkovsky but could not break his spirits: Russian president Vladimir Putin might not see any longer any threat in his former political prisoner but the exiled Khodorkovsky hopes that Putin is utterly mistaken. Unexpectedly set free, Khodorkovsky left prision as a man with stronger inner freedom, dedicating all his energy, ideas, and power to create another Russia – a Russia without Putin.