In December 2021, Dmitry Muratov accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper that had lost six of its journalists in the line of duty. Weeks later, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Under the weight of new wartime censorship laws, the independent paper Muratov had co-founded in 1993 suspended its print edition, the website was later blocked, and the state revoked its licences.

Director Patrick Forbes had known Muratov for two decades when he began filming him shortly before the award ceremony in Oslo. His documentary, The Price of Truth, chronicles everything that followed: the onset of war; the auctioning of the Nobel medal for a record $103.5 million to support displaced Ukrainian children; the chemical attack aboard the Moscow–Samara train; and Muratov’s subsequent designation as a "foreign agent".

Now the two meet again, this time without a camera. Presented by Pushkin House in partnership with Redkollegia, a community of journalists from Russia's independent media, the evening draws on their shared history to reflect on the legacy of Novaya Gazeta and the colleagues murdered in the line of duty, the devastating repression of the free press in Russia, and Muratov's deliberate choice to remain in Moscow when so many others have fled. Despite everything, Novaya Gazeta has not stopped working in Russia.

The conversation will be conducted in Russian and English, with simultaneous interpretation provided, and will be followed by Q&A.

Dmitry Muratov is a Russian journalist, born in 1961 in Kuybyshev (now Samara). In 1993 he left Komsomolskaya Pravda with a group of colleagues to found Novaya Gazeta, serving as its editor-in-chief from 1995 to 2017 and again from 2019 to 2023. Under his editorship the paper became Russia's leading independent title, known for its reporting on Chechnya, corruption and abuses of power – work for which six of its journalists, among them Anna Politkovskaya, were murdered. He was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Maria Ressa. Designated a "foreign agent" by the Russian authorities in September 2023, he stepped down as editor days later to spare the newspaper the designation's obligations. He continues to live in Moscow.

Patrick Forbes began his career as a junior researcher on a BBC series and has gone on to become one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers. He has won BAFTAs for the Channel 4 series The Force and the BBC series The National Trust. His feature documentaries include WikiLeaks: Secrets and Lies, which premiered at SXSW, The Widowmaker, The Phantom (Tribeca, 2021) and Putin: The New Tsar for the BBC. The Price of Truth premiered at Sheffield DocFest in 2023 and was broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK and by FRONTLINE in the US.

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