The "right" business

“There is already a result from your articles. The organizers of the demonstration process were alert when they realized that the press became interested in business. They began to relate differently. At least we now know that Oleg is alive. We know who he is sitting with, that the camera is for two. That he is not beaten, ”the thin girl Natasha, the cousin of Oleg, tells me. We stand on the steps of the Memorial in anticipation of the film.

Oleg Sentsov was arrested on May 11 in Simferopol. For the next week, relatives could not get any information about him. Lawyer Dmitry Dinze flew to Moscow on May 19, where they allegedly transferred the case - he was not in Moscow. The fact that Oleg is in Lefortovo, a lawyer and relatives learned another week later, on May 26. The arrested film director on charges of terrorism was hidden for two weeks-Natasha believes, so that traces of beatings were not noticeable at the meeting.

Natalya Kochneva is the only relative in Moscow. In Simferopol, Sentsov has a pensioner-mother and two children, Alina and Vlad, 13 and 9 years old. Vlad is a disabled person with a diagnosis of "children's autism". In the first weeks of the arrest of Oleg Sentsov, they tried to deprive parental rights: Oleg's relatives were summoned for interrogation to the minors' department. But as soon as the noise was raised (as Natasha believes), the attempts stopped.

“In general, we have a large family, we are from the Urals. Oleg’s parents once left to live in Simferopol, where he was born, and I in Moscow. ”

I share my impressions of the May trip to Simferopol: the Crimean Tatars forbade the new authorities to hold a peaceful action on the day of deportation. They arranged riot police training on Lenin Square, set up self -defense units and explained what was happening to the prevention of a terrorist attack - from the side of the Crimean Tatars, or from nowhere to come from the “Right Sector” ( an organization banned in the Russian Federation ). After these events, the majority of the Crimean Tatar population, previously loyal to the Russian presence in the Crimea, took a pro-Ukrainian position: for twenty-one years of independence, the Ukrainian authorities never interfered with peaceful processions.

The Hall of Memorial is complete. Among the guests are directors Pavel Bardin and Askold Kurov, critics Anton Dolin, Andrei Plakhov and Larisa Malyukova. Presenting the film, Plakhov tells the story of acquaintance with Sentsov in Rotterdam. As I saw the film “Gamer”, how was amazed at the size of the budget (ten to twenty thousand dollars), as was fascinated by the atmosphere of cosmopolitanism in the Ukrainian Crimea. And as he invited Sentsov to Khanty-Mansiysk to the Fire Spirit festival, where he received the Russian Film Critics Award. Next, Oleg was going to shoot the film "Rhino", to which he had already received German money. "Oleg seemed to me a very sound and creative person, so what is happening is especially bitter."

“We are all aware that the Moscow festival is underway,” continued Larisa Malyukova, “cinematographers and journalists are preoccupied with the fate of the arrested Iranian director Jafar Panahi in Cannes or Berlin. They put a free chair in the jury and express their support in every possible way. Not everyone will dare to do it. ”

In the video recording of the TV show “On the Main” of May 13, 2013, which is shown before the film, Sentsov talks about her life. How eight years have been engaged in e -sports. How he began to write articles, scripts. Luck came with the first film: he was taken to thirty international festivals. “I finally began to live another life,” the phrase scratching heart sounds.

The question of what kind of social activity Oleg Sentsov was engaged in is clarified by journalist and human rights activist Alexander Mnatsakanyan, who met Oleg in the Crimea. Where Oleg returned after participating in Avtomaydan: people with cars helped Maidan to deliver food or medicine. In Crimea, the hunt for activists and the Ukrainian military just began. At the end of March, one of the regiments was ordered in six hours to free apartments in a hostel: Oleg collected money in half a day and hired several buses to take out the military families with children from the suburbs of Sevastopol to Ukraine. At night, they, along with Mnatsakanyan, transported people through a checkpoint, after which they returned back to the Crimea.

“I think the case is fabricated,” says Mnatsakanyan. - For what? Apparently, to intimidate other activists. It’s hard to say why Oleg and these three young people (together with Sentsov) were difficult to say. Nobody saw the case materials. The process is closed. "

Human rights activist Zoya Svetova tells the story of a visit to Lefortovo, described by her in The New Times : about how they tried not to let her into the pre -trial detention center with two other members of the PMC. As investigator Mikhail Savitsky wanted to take a non -disclosure subscription from the PMC members: "You should not ask about how he was detained and what was with him." Sentsov, to whom they were allowed as a result, asked to give him notebooks and pen. “I reminded him that Eduard Limonov wrote his book in the Lefortovo pre -trial detention center. He was inspired. "

“Of course, I was not in Simferopol. But I’m sure 99.9 percent that he is innocent, ”says Svetova,“ this story is too similar to another, with a hastily concocted attempt on Kadyrov in 2007. ”

Gennady Afanasyev, Alexander Kolchenko, Alexei Chirniy, arrested with Sentsov, behave differently. Afanasyev (human rights activists believe that under pressure) signed confession. The rest, including Oleg, completely deny guilt.

“The FSB press service, which published the press release that were detained by activists of the“ Right Sector ”, was most outraged. At the same time, there was no court. Activists of the “Right Sector” were declared without a sentence, ”says Natasha.

From the same information certificate of the FSB it follows that the following accusations are made against them: the arson of the United Russia office, the commission of sabotage-terrorist acts in the cities of Simferopol, Yalta and Sevastopol, the destruction of railway bridges, and power lines. “There is no railway in Yalta,” Natasha concludes.

Lawyer Dmitry Dinze acts on Skype. He says that Oleg does not lose the presence of the spirit. Thanks for support and asks not to forget. He believes that law enforcement agencies will figure it out and recognize the error.

“The grounds for changing the preventive measure and termination of the criminal prosecution of Sentsov and Kolchenko are not currently being seen” - this is how the Prosecutor General’s Office, represented by Deputy Prosecutor Green Victor, responds to the request of the Presidential Rights Council the day after the show in the “Memorial”.

“Gamer” is a story about overcoming: a chamber drama of a loner in a swamp, who decided to change life.

Signs of “swampy”-paper wallpaper on the walls of a terrible Soviet small-sized apartment, buckwheat with a cutlet and ketchup for dinner, bright red shoes of friends and their sharp studs, cutting spring ice. The provincial everyday life, from which the hero runs into the depths of the monitor: from there, magic monsters rush towards him, which is easier to win than the feeling of “cutlets with buckwheat” in the eyes of classmates.

A modest film is crowned with a curious ending. Under the spirit of the lifting anthem, performed by the "songs", the hero is pulled into a string along a wall carpet with a Soviet pennant pinned to it. The song, by the way, from the Soviet cartoon, and sang its frog. The majority failed to break out of a quagmire called the USSR - Russian and even Ukrainian, and especially the Crimean, with tears in the eyes of May Day who was walking this year.

What is happening with the Sentsov himself is akin to the Soviet reality of the early years, which Pavel Bardin spoke about this evening in the Memorial: when filmmakers in the 37th were planted for attempting Stalin.

I look closely at the walls of the houses of the Crimean city of N. Mentally following the hero in the tram, trying to guess the scene of the film. Simferopol is listed in the credits. Written, as you know, can not always be believed.

There is no tram in Simferopol.

There is no railway in Yalta.