The Trial

In 1930, a group of economists and engineers are accused of plotting against the Soviet government. They all admit their guilt and acknowledge the seriousness of their crimes. A packed courtroom listens to their confessions. The model for the Soviet show trials that were to come is set. For two hours, we can see part of the official drama of Stalinist rule. The charges are false, and the defendants are forced to admit to crimes that they never committed.

In preparing this distillation of the 1930 trial, director Sergei Loznitsa said: “I decided to make the film in such a way, as to give the spectators a chance to spend two hours in the USSR in 1930: to see and to experience the moment, when the machine of state terror, created by Stalin, was launched into action. This film is at once completely authentic and truthful – from the point of view of the material and the documentary method of shooting, and completely fake – as all the participants of the trial are telling lies, and they are all fully aware of that.”