Anna Narinskaya

The documentary film about the legendary American publishing house, Ardis. This is a story about books and freedom, and two Americans who changed the history of Russian literature. In the 60s and 70s, Soviet censorship banned ideologically unsound books, prompting literary critics Carl and Ellendea Proffer to confront the issue. From the basement of their Michigan home, they established Ardis Publishing which went on to print the works of Nabokov, Brodsky, Sasha Sokolov, and many others. Through witness accounts and Ellendea herself, the film tells the story of how a small publishing house managed to make banned voices heard not only in the West, but in the Soviet Union itself. With a resurgence of censorship in Russia when the country once again tightens its grip on dissenting voices, this film offers more than just an exploration of the past, it's a lens through which we can understand the present.

Jews were called "the main secret of the Soviet Union." For seventy years they existed in the zone of silence, but this silence attracted a burning and constant interest. Some were sure that the Jews had penetrated everywhere, up to the top of the Soviet power, and ruled the entire USSR. Others looked for Jewish allusions in popular books, songs, films. Still others saw Jewish secret signs everywhere and everywhere. Where are the real facts, and where is the fruit of a sick imagination?