Political Girl

2014: Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics. Russia invades Crimea. Putin is re-elected president. Several political prisoners are amnestied and released early from prison. Maria Alyokhina is among them. She had spent two years in a penal colony after performing the punk prayer 'Virgin Mary, Banish Putin' with her friends in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. They had warned the rest of the world of the dangers of authoritarianism but the Russia she finds when she gets out of prison is even more oppressive. What can you do, she asks, when your country has been seized by all-powerful men who are waging war against another country and their own citizens? As Maria recounts her brave and colourful protests, we are drawn straight into the world of grassroots opposition and witness the absurd measures the Russian state takes to contain protest.