Refusenik

Laura Bialis' documentary chronicles the decades-long, international grassroots movement to pressure the Soviet government into allowing the emigration of "refuseniks:" Russian Jews who were systematically persecuted after applying for exit visas, applications that were inevitably refused.

Frequent targets of anti-semitic Czars, Russia's Jews at first hoped that the communist revolution would better their lives, but its promises of non-partisan equality quickly evaporated. Under Stalin, who at first appeared sympathetic to the Jewish cause and even surreptitiously sold military planes to Israel, Jew were simultaneously scorned, denied educational and employm...