In 2006, the world famous Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot and killed in front of her house in Moscow, probably as a result of her critical reports on the war in Chechnya. Director Masha Novikova interviews Politkovskaya's colleagues at the editorial office of the Novaja Gazeta and human rights activists about her career, motivations and death. The film incorporates images from recent years, including interviews with the calm and uncompromising Politkovskaya herself, who is received with applause at a commemoration of the Nord-Ost kidnapping drama of 2002. Novikova follows in her subject's footsteps by travelling to Chechnya, where people testify to arrests, torture and vanishings. The film crew pays a visit to a Chechen refugee camp in Ingushetia and the ruins of the school in Beslan, which in 2004 was occupied by Chechen rebels and violently relieved by the Russian army. In the voice-over, poignant texts from Politkovskaya's publications are read out.
