August 2015, a courtroom in Rostov-on-Don. A man is peering through the bars of his cage, his eyes reveal that his nerves are about to snap. Today he will be handed down a sentence to which he must submit: 20 years’ imprisonment in Siberia for terrorism. The man is Oleg Sentsov, a film director and Maidan activist born in Simferopol in the Ukraine. He is charged with leading an anti-Russian terrorist movement and having planned attacks on bridges, power lines and a monument of Lenin. Sentsov defends himself, courageously and without flinching. He responds to the verdict with an emphatic denial of his crimes and instead accuses the accusers themselves ...

In 1930, during what became known as the Industrial Party Trial, some members of the Soviet technical elite were tried for plotting to form a counter-revolutionary party. This documentary depicts that trial, in which a dozen men are prosecuted for crimes against the Russian Revolution. They promptly confess and are given the chance to address the court with an explanation. Full of remorse, they plead for the opportunity to pay off their debt to society by working. Then they wait for their sentence.