Barbara Lehmann:

On the one hand, Chechnya bears the scars of two wars to this day. Traumatized people, invalids, land mines, mass graves, and military bases. This is the one face of Chechnya: this, and a Chechnyan and Russian militia with almost unlimited power and authority. The other face is Ramsan Kadyrov's reconstruction program, "War without traces." Within the space of a few months, construction teams working around the clock transformed the pile of rubble that was Grosny into a freshly whitewashed, gleaming metropolis – and even in the remotest mountain regions, new hospitals and schools are being opened every day. Parts of the population are coming out of their lethargy and depression and daring to hope again. But for others, the country is a prison, a torture chamber from which they are desperate to escape as soon as possible.
On the one hand, this documentary features the families of kidnapped people and the critical voices of Russian and Chechnyan civil rights activists and highlights the repressed reality behind the bright new facades. On the other hand, it shows the new rulers at work - ministers, members of parliament, and the mayor of Grosny – and shows the 31-year old president, Ramsan Kadyrov, visiting a large north Caucasian cement factory and touring the plains of rebuilt Chechnya. At the same time, the film shows the dangerous reconstruction work in the – restricted – mountain regions, where there is still fighting between Chechnyan separatists, Kadyrov's militias, and Russians.
The feature shows the many facets of the new Chechnya and its innumerable different truths and realities between the fronts and the political camps.

WDR 5, Feature, 27.1.08, 11:05 to 12:00
SWR 2, Wissen, 12.2.08, 8:30 to 8_58
BR 2, Nahaufnahme, 19.2.08, 15:30 to 16:00(repeated 22:30)
Deutschlandfunk (time to be announced), background and broadcast date to follow