Russian activist Anastasia Shevchenko was arrested for speaking out against the government. During her imprisonment (house arrest), she was separated from her child who died alone in the hospital. As she travels across Russia by train to the Black Sea – to scatter her daughters ashes – she realizes that the only way she can fight for freedom is to leave her homeland forever.
Film Director Sarah McCarthy produces an intensely intimate film capturing the losses on so many levels.
The timing of the film release is helping to galvanize people around the world to resist the russian regime. To share her story with as many people as possible. An Academy award would amplify the movement.
“Anastasia” is short listed for the Academy Awards – narrowed to the top 15 – with more one round to the top 5 nominees for the Oscar 2023, the 95th Academy Award in the next few days.
The story of Anastasia Shevchenko’s courageous battle against the Putin regime, for political reform and its tragic ramifications, chronicled in the award-winning documentary short film ANASTASIA, is streaming now on Paramount Plus, where it is now available in US and from January 5 in other English speaking countries.
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.
