Refusenik

Director: Laura Bialis
USA 2007 120 mins
Language: Hebrew and Russian with English subtitles

In the 1960s, Russian Jews began to demand the right to emigrate to Israel. Laura Bialis’s film chronicles the refusal of the Jewish dissidents to be silenced or intimidated by the Soviet regime. Natan Sharanksy, Valery Panov and many more testify to their long ordeal. Under constant surveillance, many were incarcerated for years in Gulag prison camps or state psychiatric institutions. One American activist recalls, “Depending on their status, they would have between one and four KGB agents following them.” Their political crusade gathered momentum as the Helsinki Accords were ratified, and President Reagan took up their cause.

The fall of the Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union finally unlocked the gates. A total of one and a half million Jews have emigrated from Russia to Israel.The film is a reminder of how recently Soviet power appeared monolithic, and of the courage of the refuseniks and their allies – dismissed by one Russian prosecutor as “a bunch of students and housewives”. MG

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Laura Bialis and Michael Sherbourne, one of the leading campaigners for Soviet Jewry who features in the film.