Whose Agents? Watch 7x7’s documentary about the first individuals labeled as foreign agent media with English subtitles

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE (MATERIAL) WAS CREATED (OR) DISSEMINATED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA ACTING AS A FOREIGN AGENT AND (OR) A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY ACTING AS A FOREIGN AGENT.

Any statement made by people who were included in the register of the foreign agent media by the Ministry of Justice should contain this phrase. We present it at the request of one of the characters of the documentary about the life of the first “individuals labeled as foreign agent media”, released by 7x7.

Human rights advocate Lev Ponomaryov*, journalists Sergei Markelov*, Lyudmila Savitskaya*, and Denis Kamalyagin*, and performance artist Daria Apakhonchich* became them on December 28, 2020. 7x7’s journalists Sofia Krapotkina and Maxim Polyakov went to Pskov and St. Petersburg on New Year's Eve to talk to them.

“The state is trying to intimidate independent journalists, activists, and politicians. That is why there is the law on individuals labeled as foreign agents. Its second goal is to prove to the Russians that foreign agents are enemies, almost inhumans, and to cultivate hatred towards them. While making the movie, we saw that its characters were nice and open people who loved their work, their city and their country. This is not a fake patriotism, but a real one, which denounces officials and raises hard questions. That is why they have entered the register of foreign agents,” said Maxim Polyakov, one of the film’s authors.

You can watch the documentary with English subtitles.