“The Interview”: Russian Human Rights Activists Use Stop Motion to Confront Torture
In a haunting new stop-motion short titled The Interview, Russian human rights defenders have turned clay and animation into instruments of protest. Created by the Committee Against Torture (Комитет против пыток), the film exposes the normalization of torture and abuse inside Russia’s justice system—using anthropomorphic body parts to personify society’s denial, apathy, and complicity.
The short begins with a surreal tableau: clay organs sitting around a table—each one speaking as if it represents a part of the nation’s conscience. The Brain rationalizes state violence as necessary, the Arm argues that victims “must have done something,” and the Stomach shrugs with indifference. Only the Heart, voiced with visible tremor, refuses to accept the lies. As the dialogue unfolds, the film’s quiet allegory fractures into horror.
In the final scene, the animation gives way to live action. The clay heart stops beating, replaced by a real human body lying on an autopsy table. Two men in bloody aprons discuss the organs with chilling detachment—a blunt metaphor for the dehumanization that enables systemic violence. The screen fades to black over a grim message:
“47 percent of Russians consider the use of torture acceptable.
100 percent of Russians are not protected against violence and cruelty.”
The short film was produced as part of a new campaign by the Committee Against Torture, one of Russia’s most prominent and persecuted human rights organizations. Founded in 2000, the group documents torture cases, defends victims in court, and provides legal aid in a country where such activism often carries severe personal risk. Labeled a “foreign agent” by authorities, the committee continues its work despite repeated harassment and government scrutiny.
Actors Varvara Shmykova and Nikita Kukushkin lend their voices to the film’s clay cast, giving a human cadence to the distorted reasoning that often justifies abuse. According to the creators, the film is designed not just to shock, but to provoke reflection—challenging the widespread public acceptance of torture and the silence that allows it to persist.
The animation’s visual design leans heavily on raw texture and tactile realism—every fingerprint and smear of clay amplifies the unease. The filmmakers use the physical imperfections of stop motion as moral metaphor: the world itself feels bruised, stitched together, and on the verge of collapse. By the time the animation dissolves into live footage, the boundary between symbol and reality has completely eroded.
Beyond its artistic execution, The Interview underscores a growing trend of activist animation—where stop motion, with its handcrafted intimacy, becomes a powerful form of testimony. In oppressive contexts where journalism is censored and footage is suppressed, clay and puppetry can speak truths that live cameras cannot safely show.
For the Committee Against Torture, the film is both a warning and a plea. It confronts viewers with the question of moral responsibility: when violence becomes ordinary, what part of the collective body will finally refuse to stay silent?
