Section: What´s left?

DELO

The Case

Nina Guseva

RU, 2021, 76 Min

In Russia, the police and the state wilfully disregard the right to freedom of assembly. Russian lawyer Maria Eismont takes a stand against this with recourse to legal means. This documentary accompanies her for a year and a half as she defends and supports her client Konstantin Kotov, painting in the process a portrait of a committed woman.

The Russian constitution enshrines the right of its citizens to gather and demonstrate peacefully. De facto, however, in Russia this only applies on paper. Software engineer and political activist Konstantin Kotov was sentenced to prison in 2019. This documentary from director Nina Guseva shows how lawyer Maria Eismont wholeheartedly defended and supervised him for a year and a half. The camera accompanies them everywhere: to prison, to the office, home or to the courtroom. Eismont works day and night on her case, exhausts all legal means and turns to her colleagues for help. And yet despite a success at the constitutional court and a reduction in Kotov's sentence, she is repeatedly thwarted by the arbitrariness of the system.

Glad-House/Obenkino: Original version with english subtitles

Nina Guseva -

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