The Story
Russian civil rights activist Anastasia Shevchenko has faced strong repercussions for speaking out against her government. She endured house arrest for two years, and became the first person found guilty of “organizing activity of an undesirable organization” by a Russian court, for her work with the Open Russia movement. Amnesty International declared her a “prisoner of conscience.”
While Anastasia was under arrest, her teenage daughter Alina was hospitalized and died alone, becoming an early example of the Russian regime’s willingness to use the separation of parents and children as a way to silence dissent. This intentional rupture of the parental bond is a denial of the elemental human right to care for our children.
The spiritual and emotional burden that Anastasia carries makes her determination even more remarkable, as she continues to raise her two other children. One morning she gathers them and her elderly mother and takes a train across Russia to the Black Sea, a journey that this intimate story captures with poetic visual grace. Against the bright horizon, they come to terms with the family’s loss, and Anastasia realizes the only way she can continue to fight is to leave her homeland.
Screenings
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About Anastasia Shevchenko
One winter morning in 2019 while walking her seven year old son Misha to school, Anastasia was detained by a counter-extremism team. Her apartment was searched by armed men who turned her home upside down. Postcards, branded Open Russia pens and T-shirts were deemed sufficient evidence of political extremism. Anastasia was put into an isolation cell before a court hearing while her kids were left with their grandmother. The court sentenced Anastasia to house arrest pending trial which lasted over two years or 767 days.
‘Undesirable’ is a book written by Anastasia Shevchenko, giving an account of how she, a political activist from Rostov and a mother of three, was sentenced to 4.5 years of suspended jail term as ‘a threat to the foundation of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation and the security of the state’.
Amnesty International has declared Anastasia a prisoner of conscience. She was the first Russian citizen to be charged under a new criminal law on ‘undesirable organizations’, the culmination of a crackdown on the freedom of political expression and activism in today’s Russia.
Anastasia chronicles her history of social action, government persecution, and eventual house arrest against the backdrop of grief for the loss of her daughter Alina. This illuminating and chilling book details Anastasia’s fierce resistance to an oppressive regime in a story that gained international recognition and was covered by the BBC, AP, Reuters, and Amnesty International.
Press
The Filmmakers
Sarah McCarthy
Anastasia, Director & Producer
Sarah has brought stories from Russia, the Philippines, India, Saudi Arabia, America and the United Kingdom to millions of people in over 35 countries. Sarah premiered films at A-list festivals all over the world, including Telluride, Toronto International Film Festival and DOC NYC. Sarah’s films have been broadcast by HBO, Netflix, Paramount, ESPN, Channel 4 and the BBC.
Sarah’s work has received critical acclaim in The New York Times, Washington Post, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Screen International. She was recently ranked among ‘30 Most Powerful Women in Film’ by Radio Times.
Sasha Odynova
Producer
Sasha is an independent Russian filmmaker and journalist.
In the course of her career, she worked with the New York Times, The Moscow Times, CBS News, Al Jazeera English, HBO, BBC News and others, covering numerous political and human stories of the former Soviet Union.
She is known for her work on such internationally acclaimed films as “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes”, “Citizen K” and “Fearless: The Women Fighting Putin”, which won a BAFTA in Current Affairs and has been nominated for Emmy Awards 2022.
Sheila Nevins
Executive Producer
Sheila Nevins is currently serving as an Executive Producer at MTV Documentary Films / Paramount+. Sheila is the former president of HBO Documentary Films and Family Programming. At MTV Documentary Films, Sheila has led the development and production of over 30 films in just under three years.
In 2020, MTV Documentary Films’ “St. Louis Superman”, received an Academy Award Nomination, as well as a Critics Choice Award and was also a DuPont Awards finalist. In 2021, “76 Days” was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and received both an Emmy and a Peabody Award. “Hunger Ward” was nominated for an Academy Award and was a DuPont Awards finalist. “Finding Yingying” received a News and Documentary Emmy Nomination. In the same year, “Ascension”, “Coded: The Hidden Love of J.C. Lyendecker”, and “Lynching Postcards: ‘Token of a Great Day'” were all shortlisted for the Academy Awards. “Ascension” was also nominated for 6 Critics Choice Awards and further nominated for the Academy Awards in 2022. At the NAACP Image Awards, “Lynching Postcards: ‘Token of a Great Day'” won Outstanding Short Form Series or Special – Reality/Nonfiction.
At HBO, Sheila was responsible for overseeing the development and production of more than 1500 programs for HBO, HBO2 and Cinemax. As an executive producer or producer, she has received 32 Primetime Emmy Awards, 35 News and Documentary Emmys and 42 George Foster Peabody Awards. During her tenure, HBO’s critically acclaimed documentaries won 26 Academy Awards.
Maria Logan
Producer
Maria Logan, a native of St. Petersburg, has worked as a litigation lawyer at the international law firm Greenberg Traurig in Washington, D.C. In 2008, she started her own practice based in London. From 2008 to 2013, she coordinated, among other things, the efforts of many international human rights organizations in support of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and represented the case before governmental institutions worldwide.
Since Khodorkovsky’s release from prison and the launch of the Open Russia movement in September of 2014, Maria has spearheaded the international programme activities of Open Russia, including projects in the media production area. Maria serves as a Trustee to the Future of Russia Foundation and the Khodorkovsky Foundation.
From 2020, Maria has been heading the film division of the Khodorkovsky media group and has served as executive producer on a number of feature films and documentaries.
George Chignell
Executive Producer
George Chignell has been a producer of documentaries for 25 years. Most recently, she produced ‘Citizen K’ directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney. The film premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. Her previous credits include BAFTA and Academy Award winning ‘Searching For Sugar Man’, ‘I Am Ali’, ‘Project Nim’ directed by Academy winning director James Marsh, BAFTA nominated ‘Listen To Me Marlon’ directed by Stevan Riley and ‘Eric Clapton: Life In 12 Bars’ directed by Academy winning producer Lili Zanuck.
Fiona Stourton
Executive Producer
Fiona Stourton is a multi-award winning Executive Producer who worked for both the BBC and ITN before joining the independent television sector.
A graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, Fiona first worked first on the radio for the BBC Africa Service and then moved on to TV as a News trainee. She has worked as a producer on BBC radio, TV newsrooms and the Current Affairs department, and a reporter and presenter on Channel 4 News (ITN). She was a founding producer of the BBC Late Show and Editor of the BBC Foreign Affairs Correspondent for 6 years.
As an Executive Producer, Fiona’s awards include International Documentary and Current Affairs prizes from the Royal Television Society, Peabody, Dupont, Golden Nymph, Monte Carlo, Amnesty International, Grierson and she has had several BAFTA and EMMY nominations. Internationally, she has worked as EP with HBO, PBS, Smithsonian, A & E, CBC, ARTE, France TV, SBS, ABC Australia and Netflix.
Her most recent productions include: ITV 2 parter ‘The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess’, ‘Nigeria’s Stolen Daughters’ for HBO and BBC, ‘Saudi Women’s Driving School’ for HBO, ‘Brexit Behind Closed Doors’ for BBC Storyville, ZDF ARTE and a range of international broadcasters and ‘California’s Mega Fire’ for PBS Frontline and BBC – all of which have had award nominations.
Her current productions are for Netflix, TNT and BBC Storyville.
Denis Sinyakov
Cinematographer
Denis Sinyakov is an independent Russian documentary filmmaker and photographer.
In 2003–2007, he served as staff photographer at France Presse. In 2007–2012, at Reuters. He’s been a freelancer since 2012.
Among his clients are: Der Spiegel, Helsingin Sanomat, Svenska Dagbladet, New York Times, Meduza project, TV Rain, CNN, BBC, ARTE, JigSaw Production, Passion Films, Oxford films, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd etc.
During his professional career Sinyakov has been focusing on social and political issues, art, war conflicts, human rights and environment protection (the Arctic region) .
He was based in Moscow before the war with Ukraine.
19 Sept 2013 Sinyakov, along with another journalist from GB and 28 Greenpeace activists was detained by the Russian FSB and put in prison after Greenpeace’s peaceful protest against oil exploration in the Barents Sea. After two months, on the brink of the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014 he was amnested by Russian Parliament.
Denis is an Emmy Awards nominee 2021 for Alex Gibney’s films “Agent of Chaos” and “Agent of Chaos 2”.
The movies he filmed have been shown at different international festivals, including TIFF and Venice Film Festival.
Jeanna Mortimer
Editor
Jeanna Mortimer is a British-Russian film editor. She loves to edit films that are visually exciting, thematically diverse, but above all she enjoys stories that have the power to move audiences, evoke feelings and pose questions. Jeanna had a fortune to work with and learn from some truly brilliant storytellers: S. Frears, R.Curtis, A. Iannucci, A. Rickman amongst others.
She is incredibly happy to join the Anastasia team as it’s her first experience editing a film in Russian, her native language. Apart from filmmaking, Jeanna is passionate about ceramics and Pre-Contact Oceanic Art.
Mark Keady
Editor
Mark has worked in film, documentary and television editing for the past 17 years and was the editor on the documentary ‘Audrey: More than an Icon’ about the life of Audrey Hepburn. He recently finished editing ‘Sing, Freetown’, a documentary following Sierra Leone’s Sorious Samura and Charlie Haffner as they struggle to put on a nationwide play that will define their country.
He was the Associate Editor on the multi-award winning ‘The Theory of Everything’ starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones; ‘The Mercy’ starring Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz; ‘King of Thieves’ starring Michael Caine, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent and Michael Gambon; and ‘Eternal Beauty’ starring Sally Hawkins, David Thewlis and Penelope Wilson.
Tom Cross
Line Producer
Tom Cross is a multi-award winning Line Producer, currently working in-house at Academy Award winning production company Passion Pictures. Prior to his professional career, his student short film ‘The Miserables’ was nominated for a Student Academy Award and won numerous international awards. He started his career at Films of Record under the legendary film-maker Roger Graef, working on ground-breaking projects, such as ‘Great Ormond Street’ and ‘The Truth About Adoption’.
Tom has been a Production Manager and Line Producer at a number of high profile production companies, working on a range of projects, including the Royal Television Society award winning ‘A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad’, ‘Lady Boss’, ‘The Mighty Redcar’ and the multi-BAFTA nominated series ‘Crime and Punishment’.
Lena Petrosyan
Sound Recordist
Elena is an experienced freelance sound recordist who has worked on dozens of documentary and fiction films, many of which were screened at major international film festivals. She graduated from St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television in 2009. She is best known for her work on the BAFTA-nominated documentary series called “Born in the USSR” (following the UK’s Up Series), as well as “Kirill Serebrennikov: Art and Power in Russia” and “Rings of the World”.
Anton Mineev
Digital Imaging Technician
Anton is a freelance cameraman, digital imaging technician (DIT), focus puller and video engineer based in Russia.
He has worked on several projects for the prominent Ostrov studio. He studied cinematography at Moscow’s Humanities Institute of Television and Radio Broadcasting graduating in 2015.
Vyacheslav Agashkin
Production Assistant
Born in Moscow in 1985, he studied acting at the Moscow Institute of Humanitarian Education. After graduation, he worked at Moscow’s Modern Theater and the A. Dzhigarkhanyan theater. Starting from 2011, he has worked as the first assistant director to acclaimed filmmaker Sergei Dvortsevoi during the seven-years production of his poignant feature “Ayka”, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. He is currently working as a director, actor and cameraman in Russia. He is married to the Lenkom Theater actress Anastasia Marchuk. The couple is raising two sons.
Take Action
Anastasia’s daughter Alina died alone because Anastasia spoke out against the Putin regime. In Alina’s memory, Anastasia is helping parents and children affected by the regime. Below are some simple actions you can take to help Anastasia protect the sacred bond between a parent and child from the brutality of the regime.
On the 24th of February 2022 the Putin regime invaded Ukraine. According to government figures, 384 children have lost their lives in the conflict and nearly 8,000 have been separated from their parents and carers and illegally deported to Russia.
Here are some simple ways you can take action to reunite parents and children separated by the Putin regime. You can donate to Kidsave who are working towards the safe evacuation of children from the front lines of the war in Ukraine. You can donate to Rubikus a network of Russian volunteers risking their lives and lengthy prison sentences to help Ukrainians affected by the war escape from Russia.
You can sign this petition to allow Ukrainian children, whose adoptions into the US were interrupted by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a chance to return to families and homes they are already familiar with. If you are interested in hosting a Ukrainian child affected by the war in your home you can apply through Host Orphans Worldwide.