The Dmitriev Affair

Every human being has the right to know where they came from and where their family lies buried. This unshakable conviction is what drives Yuri Dmitriev (1956), who never knew his own biological parents. 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. Thanks to Yuri, their next of kin finally find out what happened to their lost relatives, who were secretly executed here in the 1930s and left behind in pits. Amid the trees where these executions took place, a place of remembrance comes into being where, after decades of swallowing their profound grief, the surviving relatives can finally give free rein to it. Then one day, following an anonymous complaint, he is charged with taking pornographic pictures of his foster daughter. And arrested. While we follow Yuri’s life, archive footage brings the Stalin era and the 1990s to life – not as past history, but as an unresolved trauma deeply influencing contemporary Russia. Unexpectedly intimately, the filmmaker tells us a story we mainly know from afar: how a state rewrites history and what this means for its citizens.

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Direction: Jessica Gorter

Script: Jessica Gorter

Cinematography: Sander Snoep

Editing: Katharina Wartena

Sound: Mark Wessner, Hugo Dijkstal

Production: Zeppers Film & TV

Producers: Frank van den Engel

Format: DCP

Color: Color

Production Country: The Netherlands

Production Year: 2023

Duration: 96'

Contact: Zeppers Film & TV

Jessica Gorter

Filmography

1997 Ferryman Across the Volga (short)
2011 900 Days
2017 The Red Soul
2023 The Dmitriev Affair