Fourth-generation filmmaker Alexander Rodnyansky portrays the decades-long struggle of Ukrainians against aggression, using images and cinema from his family’s past and present that connect historical events to the fight that is being fought today.

In Notes of a True Criminal, Alexander Rodnyansky recounts the history of his homeland, Ukraine, where aggression is an unrelenting ordeal. The title makes playful reference to his conviction by a Russian court after he spoke out against the war. His film is a personal indictment of the injustice Ukrainians have endured for years.

Rodnyansky explores key moments in Ukrainian history, using his own footage as well as material from science documentaries and his family archive. Bookending the film with the Russian invasion of 2022, he connects events such as the 1941 mass murder at Babi Yar and the Kurenivka mudslide of 1961, with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the withdrawal of the Soviet army from East Germany in 1990.

We see soldiers defending their country in 2022, where an aspiring cameraman documents his life on the front line, a young adult sends final video clips to a loved one and a returned prisoner dreams of apples—all bearing witness to the decades-long struggle against aggression that continues unabated in today’s Ukraine.