Film Screening: “Madly in Dissent” (Russian and English)
05 January 2026, 18:00
Directors: Ksenia and Kirill Sakharnov
Czech Republic-Israel, 2023
Recipient of the Trilobit Award
Film in Russian with English subtitles (86 minutes)
Film in Russian with English subtitles (86 minutes)
Madly in Dissent tells the story of a man who stood alone against the Soviet empire.
On 25 August 1968, Viktor Fainberg raised a poster on Red Square to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and was immediately sent to a “psychiatric prison”, the most violent instrument of Soviet political repression. Yet from inside his prison cell, he launched an international campaign that exposed the misuse of psychiatry for political purposes.
On 25 August 1968, Viktor Fainberg raised a poster on Red Square to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and was immediately sent to a “psychiatric prison”, the most violent instrument of Soviet political repression. Yet from inside his prison cell, he launched an international campaign that exposed the misuse of psychiatry for political purposes.
Filmed by Ksenia and Kirill Sakharnov, the documentary weaves rare archival materials, vivid testimonies, and a sharp visual language, turning Fainberg’s story into a reminder that resistance can begin with a single voice: one that cannot be silenced.
The film is both a tribute to prisoners of conscience in the USSR and in Putin’s Russia, and a powerful expression of solidarity with Ukraine, Fainberg’s birthplace. It portrays dissent as something deeply personal, persistent, and unbreakable, and shows how one voice can become a movement.
The screening is organized by the Nadav Foundation, the Cummings Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies, and the Minerva Center for Human Rights at Tel Aviv University.
The event will also feature works by artist and illustrator Nusya Krasovitskaya, granddaughter of Soviet dissident Natalia Gorbanevskaya, whose drawings accompany the film.
Program
18:00 – Reception and refreshments
18:30 –Greetings:
18:00 – Reception and refreshments
18:30 –Greetings:
H.E. Ms. Veronika Kuchyňová Šmigolová, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Israel;
Prof. Vera Kaplan, Head of the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, Tel Aviv University;
Dr. Sarah-Masha Fainberg, Head of the Great Powers Research Program, Elrom Center for Air and Space Studies, Tel Aviv University, daughter of Viktor Fainberg.
19:00 – Film screening, followed by a discussion with the film’s director, Ms. Ksenia Sakharnova, and artist-illustrator Ms. Nusya Krasovitskaya.
The event will be held in Russian and English.
