Films A-Z
Anna, Seven Years on the Frontline
Anna, Seven Years on the Frontline
Masha Novikova / Netherlands / 2008 / 78 min.
Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper who was not afraid to openly criticise her government's approach to the war in Chechnya, was murdered on 7 October 2006. With four shots, an unknown killer ended the life of a woman who for many represented the hope that crimes committed would not be overlooked and forgotten. This absorbing documentary tells the story of the journalist's life. Director Masha Novikova had filmed Politkovskaya regularly since 2000 along with her colleagues and friends. Thanks to some extraordinary footage, the viewer becomes a witness to the Chechen tragedy and is confronted with scarcely believable stories of the killings and disappearance of inconvenient people. Besides Politkovskaya, other people who appear in the film include Lidia Yusupova, a lawyer from Grozny who has spent many years searching for missing people from Chechnya, and Svetlana Gannushkina, who won the One World Homo Homini award in 2006. Like Anna Politkovskaya, both these women risk their own lives in the fight for justice in contemporary Russia.
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