Forward.com

Documentary Pulls Back Iron CurtainLaura Bialis’s documentary, “Refusenik,” released this month, is the first retrospective film chronicle of the 30-year international struggle to free Soviet Jewry. Based on extensive interviews with principals on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and bursting with rare and revealing archival footage of Soviet Jewish life, the film shows how a crusade that began with a handful of American college students grew into an international movement that successfully imposed a human rights agenda on American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union during the years of detente. Alexander Zaitchik recently spoke with Bialis from her new home in Sderot, Israel, about the film and how it has influenced her life and work.…Read more