Antidote

Riveting documentary about three people risking everything in their resistance to Vladimir Putin’s regime. Central figure is investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who exposes Putin’s murder machine and is forced to go on the run. A tribute to the heroism of people fighting a tyrannical regime that will stop at nothing.

What is the cost of speaking truth to power? In Putin’s Russia, it could mean your life. An immersive and chilling documentary, Antidote follows in real time three people who dare to resist. First, an anonymous Russian scientist who was responsible for developing new poisons until he found out the government was using them against dissidents. He became a whistleblower and soon had to flee the country. Then there is political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was poisoned twice and now stands trial for treason. After his arrest, his wife Evgenia became a prominent voice of the opposition.  

Central figure is Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist and head of journalism group Bellingcat. In the film’s opening, an off-camera voice asks him: ‘Did you ever think you’d be investigating an assassination plot against yourself?’ Grozev led the investigation into the poisoning of Aleksej Navalny – and also featured in the documentary Navalny, to which this is an unofficial companion piece – and now, like Navalny, has to fear for his life. His deep inner conviction keeps him going, but he’s paying an enormous price.