A young idealistic prosecutor investigates a high-security prisoner’s story after receiving a startling letter. Starkly filmed and with a building claustrophobia and disorientation in scenes of cells, bureaucratic offices, official corridors and government antechambers, the film allows an increasing anxiety to pervade. A nightmarish portrayal of the malice of governmental machinery, the film is one of the most critically celebrated of the year.

Also an award-winning documentarian, Loznitsa’s previous feature was the critically acclaimed black comedy Donbass, an episodic film based on real accounts of the realities of life in occupied eastern Ukraine.