Join PEN America for a discussion of artistic expression across the former Soviet Union and its repression.

Creative freedom is under threat in Russia and its neighboring post-Soviet states, and artists are making their stands on stages, public squares, and screens. The speakers are making a rare New York City appearance while on tour with "Burning Doors," a searing dramatization of artistic persecution featuring cases including Oleg Sentsov, the Ukrainian filmmaker and writer now serving a 20-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony recognized with the 2017 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. 

Burning Doors is a searing performance on how art persists under oppression. Through the prism of persecuted artists who will not be silenced, "Burning Doors" reveals how artists living under dictatorship illuminate the knife-edge of complacency in democratic societies reminding us of the true cost of freedom and dangers of inertia. "Burning Doors" is playing at La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theater in New York from October 12-22. Learn more. 

Speakers:

Natalia Kaliada, founding co-artistic director and CEO of Belarus Free Theatre, a writer, a producer, and a human rights campaigner

Maria Alyokhina, Russian activist and member of Pussy Riot.