Pussy Riot: a Punk Prayer

This provocative documentary is more important for what it says than how it says it. Using standard home video, talking heads and court footage, director Mike Lerner chronicles the controversy surrounding the well-publicised protest by feminist punk group Pussy Riot in Moscow's iconic Orthodox cathedral in February 2012, ostensibly to rail against Vladimir Putin and his seemingly unassailable grip on the Russian presidency. Much of the film charts the prosecution of the three women arrested: all charged with hooliganism based on religious hatred, they could be put away for three years if found guilty. There's insightful background on the women's lives from their surprisingly chilled-out parents - though even the right-on father of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova blushes over the film of his pregnant daughter having sex in a biology museum. This is no objective affair, but with critics from the Church dressed like Hell's Angels and likening the trio to witches, it's not difficult to take the side of the outspoken activists, whose eloquence under duress is often inspirational.