AllMovie

Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov turns toward nonfiction features with Disbelief, a documentary about the 1999 bombing of a Moscow apartment building. The larger political story is told through the struggles of schoolteacher Tanya Morozova, a Russian immigrant living in Wisconsin. She helps find a new home in the U.S. for her younger sister Alyona, who survived the bombing. Her mother and over one hundred of her neighbors died. Strangely, the cause of the attack remained a mystery. The Russian government quickly blamed Chechen terrorists, but evidence suggests that the secret service was behind it in order to encourage the war with Chechnya. Over the next few years, the Morozova sisters sought legal justice for the matter with the help of attorney Mikhail Trepashkin. Political commentary is provided by scholar David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. Disbelief premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004.