In competition, Cannes 2025

Original language: Russian, Ukrainian

Subtitles: Romanian, Engliah

Directed by: Sergei Loznitsa

Country: France, Germany, Netherlands, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania

Year of production: 2025

Length: 118 minutes

Genre: Drama

Soviet Union, 1937. Thousands of letters from detainees falsely accused by the regime are burned in a prison cell. Against all odds, one of them reaches its destination, upon the desk of the newly appointed local prosecutor, Alexander Kornev.

Kornev does his utmost to meet the prisoner, a victim of corrupt agents of the secret police, the NKVD. A dedicated Bolshevik of integrity, the young prosecutor suspects foul play. His quest for justice will take him all the way to the office of the Attorney General in Moscow.

In the age of the great Stalinist purges, this is the plunge of a man into the corridors of a totalitarian regime that does not bear said name.

Credits

Sergei Loznitsa – Director

Sergei Loznitsa – Script

Oleg Mutu – Cinematography

Casting

Aleksandr Kuznetsov

Aleksandr Filippenko

Anatoliy Belyy