»Do you think we could have changed something if everyone had stayed?«, asks one of the film’s characters. A direct answer to this question can never be found, but it is one that reverberates throughout the film, as well as through the conscience of the Russians who have left their country. What does it mean to have to choose between torture and life and therefore between opposition and exile?

The Russia that Sybilla Tuxen has been filming since 2018 is highly charged – she follows young people critical of the government in their everyday lives, as they hide behind window frames and with their faces bathed in the recurring light of the phones that share news and calls for rallies. It is a time when nothing stands still, caught between persecution and the hectic transfer of information. And these are years that seem to have been blurred by Vladimir Putin’s despotism. Also after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the film follows three women at the centre of this filmic documentation covering a long time period. We stay close to Alika, Alyona and Katya as their government turns against humanity. In exile in Georgia or Spain, we follow their powerlessness, their dreams, fears and doubts. While the first generation since the collapse of the Soviet Union seeks the chance to change Russia, exile plays stage to an internal struggle against their own government. A film that shows that Putin is not Russia and that the Russian opposition is stronger and braver than anyone can try and hide.