Overview
- The feature marks Serguei Loznitsa’s return to fiction and adapts a novella by former political prisoner Gueorgui Demidov.
- The story follows a newly minted magistrate drawn into the terror of 1937 purges, wrongful accusations and coerced confessions.
- The film screened in competition at Cannes this year and now reaches theaters with a 1 hour 58 minute runtime.
- Alexandre Kouznetsov leads the cast, with the action unfolding in oppressive courts and prisons under the NKVD.
- Loznitsa positions the film as a fictional counterpart to his documentary Le Procès and argues the methods it depicts persist in Russia today.