The words “900 days” may not mean much to your average American, but to a Russian, they can only mean one thing: the siege of Leningrad by the German army from September 1941 to January 1944. Surrounded and cut off from any food sources, over one million soldiers and civilians were killed or starved to death.
If this were simply the story of the siege, that would be fascinating enough, but, in Jessica Gorter’s masterfully told documentary, the mythologizing of these events after the war adds an intriguing and disturbing layer. The Soviet government made an unofficial compact with the survivors: in exchange for being heralded as national heroes, they were to remain silent about the horrors they experienced. It is only now, after enduring 65 years of lies and silence, that these eyewitnesses are finally telling the truth. In so doing, they have become truly heroic.