A Russian emigrant in Scandinavia sends her son to school, but he does not return. In search of a child, she finds herself in a dead end: according to the laws of the "new" juvenile justice, her son is the property of the state.
Devoted to the last days of Soviet writer, poet, and Gulag survivor Varlam Shalamov, this film follows the efforts of two of Shalamov’s most devoted admirers to preserve the author’s legacy. Having lost his sight and hearing and living in a retirement home, he carried on doing the only thing that mattered to him — writing — until his final breath. This film is a testament to the value of writings that tell the unpalatable truths of the 20th century. To evoke the gritty texture of the Soviet world, Sententia is shot on 16mm black and white film.