New Orleans Film Festival 2009

A dramatic, three-tiered look at today's Russia. Starting in the far eastern city of Komsomolsk, we hear the nostalgic reflections of Soviet-era pioneers who came to industrialize the region, then to Moscow for a wrenching portrait of recently assassinated journalist Anna Politkovskaya (famous for her fearless coverage of the war in Chechnya), and finally to oil-rich Khanty-Mansijsk in Siberia where we get a rosy forecast from an anything-is-possible entrepreneur. This vital documentary shows a country where the contradictions are many and its people are often at odds with economic and political transition as well as the past.