A Little Gray Wolf Will Come

For many years, Zhanna Agalakova has been working as an international reporter for Russian state media outlet Channel One, living in New York with her Italian husband Giorgio and teenage daughter Alica. Zhanna loves Russia and tries to nurture the same sense of love and pride in Alica, who feels more connected to her European roots. As Russian media increasingly embraces propaganda narratives and journalistic freedom comes under pressure, Zhanna begins to feel torn between two realities. In the years leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the conflict within the family grows too.

Using home archive footage of the family’s travels across Russia, Zhanna questions her choices and tries to understand where national pride comes from. Faced with a moral choice between supporting her family and continuing to report on Putin’s Russia, she confronts questions of integrity, pride and values. Zhanna Agalakova, who also directed A Little Gray Wolf Will Come, reveals glimpses of her past, secrets and fears, offering an intimate look at an identity beginning to crumble. After premiering at Sheffield DocFest, the film screened at festivals including CPH:DOX, Doxumentale and Eastern Europe Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary.

After the screening, a short interview will follow with Zhanna Agalakova about the film and its making process (in English).

A Little Gray Wolf Will Come is part of the program Private-Public-Political. With this label, the Noordelijk Film Festival sheds light on the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war and its impact on people’s lives in Ukraine, Russia and the wider region. ‘Private-Public-Political’ explores how geopolitical conflict shapes personal lives, relationships and everyday decisions, and how people’s lives have changed over the past ten years, and particularly since the full-scale invasion in 2022.