In the first week of July, BBC World Service and BBC News Russian will be holding a special three-day event at the Splendid Palace cinema in Riga, to showcase the BBC’s top documentaries. The films – which demonstrate the breadth of the BBC output and journalism – will be shown in English or Russian, with Latvian and English or Russian subtitles. After each screening there will be an exclusive Q&A session with the filmmakers.

The event will open on Tuesday, July 2, with the screening of the first episode of Putin vs the West, the latest blockbuster political documentary by acclaimed director, Norma Percy. The film focuses on the behind-the-scenes diplomacy during the first year the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, talking to world leaders and senior officials. Norma Percy will be joining the audience for a discussion after the screening. BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC Group, is the distributing partner of this documentary.

The theme on Wednesday, July 3, is art and crime, with The Zaks Affair – Anatomy of a Fake Collection. This film about three art detectives – one British, one Russian, and one Ukrainian American – who uncover a major international fraud involving fake Soviet constructivist art. Filmmakers Tatsiana Yanutsevich, Tatiana Preobrazhenskaya and Grigor Atanesian will be taking questions after the screening.

On Friday, July 5, the focus is on women, with two recent BBC documentaries. Burning Sun – Exposing the Secret K-Pop Chat Groups is a documentary by the BBC World Service’s award-winning and critically-acclaimed investigations team, BBC Eye. It brings together the story of two female Korean journalists who took on the task of investigating sex scandals involving prominent K-pop stars – and paid a high personal price.

The second film of the day, When I Escaped, is about young women from the North Caucasus, who are trying to escape abusive families, and about the activists helping them. Director of When I Escaped, filmmaker Zlata Onufrieva, will be talking about the documentary and answering questions afterwards.

To register to watch the films, visit the website of Splendid Palace cinema.

BBC News Russian gives Russian-speaking audiences the chance to watch premium BBC documentaries via its popular YouTube documentary strand. At a time of censorship and disinformation in Russia, BBC News Russian offers Russian speakers а different view of the world with access to the very best of the BBC. The Russian-language version of Burning Sun – Exposing the Secret K-Pop Chat Groups will be available for viewing on the BBC News Russian YouTube channel later this year. For English-speakers, some of the films shown in Riga between 2 and 5 July are also available on the BBC World Service YouTube channel.

BBC News Russian is part of the BBC World Service.