
The Dmitriev Affair 2023
Distributed by Icarus Films, 32 Court St., 21st Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201; 800-876-1710
Directed by Jessica Gorter
Streaming, 96 mins
College - General Adult
Human Rights; Russian History; Russian Politics; Soviet History
Date Entered: 01/24/2025
Reviewed by Max Sparkman, Social Sciences Librarian, SUNY GeneseoThe Dmitriev Affair provides an overview of the 2017-2021 trials of Russian human rights activist Yuri Dmitriev. Dmitriev spent years locating the execution and burial sites of Stalin’s political opponents. After unearthing two mass graves from the era and receiving international funding and awards for his work with human rights activism group Memorial, Dmitriev is falsely charged with the creation of pornographic photos, and later sexual assault, of his 11-year-old daughter. The film uses recent capture, interviews, and found footage and news broadcasts to tell the story of the resulting trials.
While the film is a very interesting watch, the depth of coverage leaves something to be desired. The first 30-40 minutes of the film provides context for Dmitriev’s work, including the background of Stalin’s executions and footage of how Dmitriev goes about finding the sites. Most of this section, though, focuses on Dmitriev’s personal life, including his relationship with his adopted daughter and his dog. Considering this section takes up over a third of the film, the coverage is very cursory, and some existing knowledge of Stalin’s Great Purge is necessary to bridge some of the gaps. The second section of the film focuses on Dmitriev’s trials. Unfortunately, because the trials mostly happened behind closed doors and were not open to the public, the coverage in this section is also not quite as in depth as would be ideal. As the amount of information covered is a bit small, the film ends up meandering through several tangents to fill time. This results in a finished product that feels a bit all over the place, and it is difficult to pin down exactly what the main focus of the film is.
This film could potentially be clipped and shown in courses on Russian or Soviet history, though as a whole film it is much better suited to non-academic uses which leads me to give The Dmitriev Affair a rating of recommended with reservations. This film would be a nice addition to a Russian or Soviet history-oriented collection, but definitely needs supplemental materials or information to fully shine.
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