Film Screening: The Right to Memory - a film about Arseny Roginsky. At Pushkin House on Tuesday 11 December at 18:30

On Tuesday, 11 December at 18:30, Pushkin Club and Rights in Russia present  the UK premiere of ‘The Right to Memory’ (directed by Ludmila Gordon), a new documentary about Arseny Roginsky (30th March 1946 – 18th December 2017), renowned dissident historian and leader of Memorial. The screening will be followed by a memorial evening. Speakers: Elena Zhemkova, Executive Director, Memorial, Mary McAuley, author of ‘Human Rights in Russia: Citizens and the State from Perestroika to Putin’, and Natalia Rubinstein, literary critic, Roginsky’s oldest friend. 6.30 – 9pm Please not the early start Discussion will be in Russian with English interpreter “The Right to Memory” documents Roginsky's reflections on his personal story, which is deeply embedded in the history of the country, or rather, on the history of the country through the prism of one man's life. This year, Memorial marks 30 years since its founding. Roginsky tells about the earliest initiatives to create a memorial to commemorate the victims of mass repression, which grew into the largest informal political movement of the 1980s, and shares his observations on what Memorial has been able to achieve since. The premiere of the film took place at Memorial's offices in Moscow and in Perm on March 30th, 2018, the anniversary of Roginsky's birth. On that day, the film was also shown simultaneously by many liberal Russian media outlets. It was the first time that multiple media platforms had held this kind of joint action - an expression of the high regard in which they hold Arseny Roginsky. Soon after, screenings and discussions followed in Kiev, Kharkov, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Washington, and now, in London. Ludmila Gordon (film director of 'The Right to Memory') is a researcher specializing in content development for historical museum exhibitions. She has worked with Ralph Appelbaum Associates on creating the permanent exhibitions and media programs of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center in Yekaterinburg, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, and the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, among others. Having joined Memorial in 1988 to help gather materials for the archive and museum, Ludmila stayed in touch throughout the years. In 2016, she approached Arseny Roginsky to share on film his thoughts on the place of Memorial in today's Russia and to tell his life story. Usually turning down such requests, reluctant to talk on camera about himself, Roginsky agreed this time. This recording would become his last.