Goulag(s) - Michaël Prazan

Immersed in one of the most appalling prison systems of the 20th century, this documentary explores the traces of the Moscow Gulag on the borders of Eastern Siberia. He presents this story by following Assia Kovrigina in the footsteps of her grandfather, a Jewish intellectual imprisoned by the Soviet regime.

An acronym formed after the Russian Glavnoïé orpravlénié laguéreï, Gulag means "Main direction of the camps". As an instrument of terror, territorial colonization and economic expansion, the Gulag brings together multiple and changing realities that have occupied a central place in the history of the USSR.

Following in the footsteps of Samuel Shnapir, a former Pravda journalist sent to Siberia, the film focuses in particular on the anti-Semitic campaign led by the Soviet regime from 1946 onwards against "cosmopolitan people in roots". First affecting literary and intellectual circles, it quickly spread to other sectors of society. The tragic story of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee - created in 1942 and chaired by Solomon Mikhoëls, a Yiddish actor and theatre director - is emblematic of the repression that fell on Soviet Jews after the Second World War.

A major historical documentary, Gulags is an investigation into the sites of Soviet terror based on unpublished archives and numerous testimonies. On the frozen roads of the Russian winter, it is a journey into the collective memory of the former USSR.

Documentary, 2018, 77 min, TV Presse Productions / France Télévisions.

This film received the support of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah.