Russian director Andrey Konchalovskiy, whose six-decade filmmaking career has ranged from co-writing screenplays with Tarkovsky (Andrei Rublev, 1966) to directing Hollywood action films (Runaway Train, 1985), via Chekhov adaptations (Uncle Vanya, 1970), here presents a dramatisation of events surrounding the 1962 Novocherkassk massacre. Lyuda (Yuliya Vysotskaya) remains a loyal Communist Party member despite general conditions becoming more difficult. Her relatively placid existence is shaken when a strike at the local locomotive plant attracts the attention of Moscow, resulting in bloody reprisals, during which Lyuda’s teenage daughter Svetka (Yuliya Burova) goes missing. Fearing that Svetka is among those killed, Lyuda embarks on a frantic search that sees her faith in the system crumble in a film of powerful anger and resonance.