The Dmitriev Affair: Film Screening & Conversation with Filmmaker Jessica Gorter (04/05/24)
Join us for a special screening of The Dmitriev Affair (2023, Netherlands, 96 min).
Friday, April 5, 2024 • 2 PM
College of Communication, 640 Commonwealth Avenue, Room B-05
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Deep inside the Russian forests, against the wishes of the authorities, 60-year-old Yuri Dmitriev searches for mass graves from the era of Stalin’s terror against his own people – until one day he is arrested and sentenced to 15 years in a penal colony. Following Yuri closely, the film paints a shocking picture of the way the Russian state rewrites history and treats its citizens.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Jessica Gorter.
Gorter is a Dutch documentary filmmaker. She studied directing and editing at the Dutch Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam. Her films revolve around the tension between personal memories and history at large. They are acclaimed for never being unequivocal and characterized by her visual and observing style.
Her films are screened worldwide at film festivals, theatrically released and broadcasted internationally. Gorter made her breakthrough with 900 Days (2011) about the myth and reality of the Leningrad blockade. The film won a.o. the IDFA Award for Best Dutch Documentary, the Prix Interreligieux at Visions du Réel and the special jury prize at ArtDocFest in Moscow. In 2014 Jessica received the prestigious Documentary Award from the Dutch Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund for her work.
Earlier in her career she made the short poetic documentary Ferryman across the Volga (1997, Prix de RTBF) and Piter (IFFR, 2004): a captivating look into the lives of seven residents of Saint Petersburg at a turning point in history. In her third feature-length film The Red Soul (2017), the director investigated why Stalin is still seen as a hero by so many Russians. Her latest documentary The Dmitriev Affair (2023) is a thematic continuation of all the films she has made in Russia since the 90s: laying bare the consequences for individual lives of the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
