A sealed shaft in a Donbas coal mine contains unimaginable horror: layer upon layer of human bodies, the victims of Red & White terror during the Revolution, of Stalin’s purges, of the Einsatzgruppen in the Holocaust. Around this infamous pit, in a polluted region convulsed once again by war and cruelty when Russia invades Ukraine, the fates of four characters intertwine: a mysterious and powerful laundress whose dedication to cleaning the filth created by the mine attracts the suspicion of the secret police; her innocent daughter Zhanna, left alone by her mother’s death; a brutal Russian militia man, who targets Zhanna; and his boss, a former KGB man turned ruthless servant of Putin. The voice of The Engineer, a murdered Jew who designed and constructed the mine, is a witness to the bloody history of the region and the terrible secret at its heart. A haunting, lyrical meditation on the legacy of dictatorship and atrocity.
