Musya

dir. Maria Markina

Students from a Russian school in Toronto re-enact life stories of Maria Blagoveshchensky, a living witness to Stalin's Reign of Terror for whom "life under the Soviets was worse than under the Germans during the war". When the truth about millions of violently repressed prisoners of war comes out, their pride in the Soviet military triumph in WWII gets shaken. Through re-enactments and interviews, students contemplate the aftermath of Stalin's regime and grapple with an answer to the question, "What is it really like to be afraid of your own people?" The film encourages an open conversation on the mistakes of the past - the only way to critically assess the direction the country is moving in at the moment.