Pussy Riot documentary heading to 2013 Sundance Film Festival

The three arrested members of Pussy Riot

Credit: AP Photo

The 2013 Sundance Film Festival has nabbed the world premiere of "Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer," which is to chronicle the arrest and trial of the all-women punk band from Russia.

The documentary film is co-directed by Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin. The former has who's produced titles like "Hell and Back Again" and "The Afghans" and the latter produced and directed "Capital," a doc on the 10th anniversary of the Kazakhstan city of Astana. 

Three members of Pussy Riot were arrested back in March this year for performed a guerrilla concert in Moscow's main cathedral, dancing and singing to a "punk prayer," to save Russia from soon-to-be third term elected president Vladimir Putin. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were charged with hooliganism and sentenced to two years in Russian prison, a harsh sentence that Putin himself discouraged.

Two other members of the group fled the country in August, claiming they were firm on "recruiting foreign feminists to prepare new actions." Now, at least, we know what some of those actions entail.

The short synopsis to "A Punk Prayer"  reads: "Three young women face seven years in a Russian prison for a satirical performance in a Moscow cathedral. But who is really on trial: the three young artists or the society they live in?"

The film is credited to the filmmakers' home countries -- to the U.K. and the Russian Federation -- and is part of Sundance's World Cinema Documentary Competition. Sundance runes Jan. 17-27.

Katie Hasty
Managing Editor

• Follow

After five years as a columnist and editor at Billboard, Katie Hasty joined HitFix in 2009 for music and film reporting out of New York. The Midwest native has worked as a writer, music promoter and in A&R since 1999 and performs with her band Numbers And Letters.