"Three Comrades" is the story of three friends from Grozny. They met in school and listened to Western Rock Music together as young adults. Islam becomes a doctor, Ramzan a TV cameraman and I never did quite figure out what Ruslan did but his wife is lovely.
In 1994, when the first Chechen war broke out, Ramzan became the eyes of the world as he worked for Chechen TV. He also filmed his family and friends all of the time, as he had since he got his first camera. Islam left his cardiologist training to work in the hospital in Grozny as an anesthesiologist. During this war Ruslan was taken away to be questioned by the Russian Army and later found dead.
The second Chechen war broke out in the fall of 1999. Ramzan and Islam followed their callings again.
This is a link to the CNN report of Ramzan's death http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9911/11/chechnya.02/. Islam is in exile in the Netherlands.
Masha Novikova has made a touching personal portrait of these three friends using Ramzan's footage over the years and interviews with Islam and Ramzan and Ruslan's beautiful widows and other family members.
This is probably the best documentary I saw at Sundance.
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