In 2021, Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize, alongside the Philippines’ journalist Maria Ressa. It marked, said the Nobel committee, “another existential point for democracy”, and the award was a rallying cry for truth, freedom of the press and holding power to account. The Price of Truth is a compelling documentary that follows Muratov and his work as the Russian invasion of Ukraine begins, giving real insight into how the war is seen on Russian soil, as well as internationally.
First, we meet Muratov, a brisk and bear-like man under immeasurable strain, who nevertheless finds moments of dry humour among the horrors, in the immediate aftermath of an attack in the carriage of a train in Moscow in April 2022. A man has poured red paint laced with acetone all over Muratov, damaging his eyesight, while another filmed the assault. The message, as he understood it, was: “Shut up, and keep your newspaper quiet.” At the time, Novaya Gazeta was still in operation; by the end of this film, every workaround that Muratov tried to find, in order to keep it publishing, has come to a dead end.
Accepting the Nobel peace prize, Muratov warned that “the world has fallen out of love with democracy”. If we give up on democracy, he said, “we agree to war”. Two months later, Putin sent tanks into Ukraine. In following the fate of Novaya Gazeta, we see a portrait of Russia today. There are clips of crackdowns on protesters, of Putin justifying his “specialist operation”, and of journalists being arrested and charged with treason or high treason.
Muratov is forced to walk a tightrope of technicalities, careful language and public behaviour, in order to avoid being labelled a “foreign agent” by the state. For example, he is invited to be on the jury of a Latvian documentary festival; he cannot have his flight and accommodation paid for by them, as is standard because it would risk the state deeming him a foreign agent. Later, as attempts are made by his staff to continue the work of Novaya Gazeta as a European edition, he cannot be seen with the editor, due to the risk of association.
After the death of his great friend Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Russian president, who helped fund the fledgling Novaya Gazeta operation – Muratov tells a wonderful funny story about their first meeting – the state revokes permission to publish inside Russia. Six of the newspaper’s journalists, including Anna Politkovskaya, have been murdered since it was first published in 1993. He agrees to participate in this film only if his journalists are not put at risk. We see his team fleeing Russia and setting up elsewhere. We then see two journalists, beaten, bloodied and covered in paint. In a nail-biting moment near the end of the documentary, Muratov is there to help them escape immediate danger.
The Price of Truth comes from the film-maker Patrick Forbes, a longstanding friend of Muratov, who has known him for 20 years. Forbes is not an overbearing presence here, but nor is he a silent observer. At one point, he says that he has asked Muratov not to return home to Moscow. There is a clear sense that Muratov will not say anything he does not want to say – he flatly refuses to answer questions about his personal safety, for example, as if it is a minor irrelevance – but the friendship with Forbes gives this an easy familiarity. At a key moment in the story, they bet a good bottle of whisky on the outcome of a charity auction.
This is a compelling film because Muratov is a compelling subject. He is a staggeringly courageous and principled man who refuses to leave Moscow because it is his home. He jokes about his mother’s indifference to the news that he will receive the Nobel peace prize. He is devoted to the safety and freedom of others, at a great cost to himself. Many will know what he did with his Nobel medal; nevertheless, to witness it here is remarkable. But I suspect he would be the first to point out that this film is not about him at all. It is about the freedom of journalists to report on power and abuses of power, and to tell the truth when the world is turning against it.
Eventually, it becomes too dangerous to keep making this documentary, but it ends, fittingly, with a long list of names: the journalists labelled foreign agents by the state, and the journalists who are now in Russian prisons for doing their jobs.
The Price of Truth was on Channel 4 and is available on All 4
