We would like to invite you to a screening of the documentary The Dmitriev Affair, directed by Dutch filmmaker Jessica Gorter. The screening will take place on 16 October 2024, at 18:00, in SPAAK 05B01 of the European Parliament (Brussels).
The film tells the poignant story of Russian human rights activist Yuri Dmitriev and his quest to uncover the truth about Stalin’s “Great Purge” campaign of 1937. Dmitriev’s courageous efforts to expose the horrors of Stalin’s purges, and the Putin regime’s response to his work, are emblematic of a broader pattern of repression and historical distortion in today’s Russia. Putin uses history as a weapon, erasing or distorting inconvenient truths to craft a version of the past that bolsters his imperial ambitions in Ukraine and beyond. Similarly, the Putin regime weaponizes history against its own people, justifying the unjustifiable to its own population in order to maintain nostalgia-based loyalty for the current regime.
Following the screening, we invite you to stay for a reception and discussion with the film's director, Jessica Gorter; a member of the Memorial Society Irina Galkova. Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum will share her remarks remotely. The event is jointly hosted by MEPs Rasa Juknevičienė (EPP) and Dainius Žalimas (Renew).
Register HERE.
*****
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.
After years of searching the pine forests of northwestern Russia, he discovers a mass grave containing thousands of victims of Stalin’s “Great Purge” of 1937. 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.
While abroad there is increasing recognition for this “archaeologist of terror”, in Russia Dmitriev is discredited as someone collaborating with the West. Then he is arrested, on basis of fabricated charges and given 15 years. Tragically accurate Dmitriev predicts his own future and that of his country.
In the words of director Jessica Gorter:
“I ended up making a film not just about Yuri and his work, but also about the mechanism of distorting and abusing the notion of “truth” by an institution only interested in self-preservation. As I see it, each person, people or nation needs an honest depiction of the past in order to come to terms with past trauma. The Dmitriev Affair shows what denying occurrences and suppressing memories does to people. By doing so, it tells a bigger story about what is happening in Russia today.”
About Yuri Dmitriev:
Yuri Dmitriev has received several awards for his work, including the Sakharov Freedom Award and the Polish Gold Cross of Merit. Dmitriev was head of the Karelian branch of the now dissolved human rights organization Memorial, who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
About Jessica Gorter:
Jessica Gorter is a Dutch documentary filmmaker. Shortly after the Soviet Union fell apart, she travelled to St. Petersburg. She was captivated by the silent revolution that took place there and has continued to follow the developments of the country and its inhabitants closely. Gorter made her breakthrough with 900 Days (2011), in which she contrasts the devastating and unforgettable stories recounted by survivors of the Siege of Leningrad, the infamous German blockade, which caused the deaths of more than 1 million people during World War II, with the triumphant memorials fabricated by the Russian state. Her latest documentary continues the theme of the films she has been making on Russia since the 1990s.
