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Disbelief, a documentary film about the
bombing of a Moscow apartment building on the night of 8-9 September 1999
takes the viewer on an intense and emotional journey in ten parts.
Nekrasov and his crew follow Tania, her young son Sasha, and her lawyer
Mikhail Trepashkin to Denver, Milwaukee, Washington, London, Mosc ow, and
the Urals, in their investigation. The film begins innocently, with Sasha
picking his nose. We are told simply that he and Tania "now live in
America," and we learn that she had started a new life long before
the horrific bombing that killed her mother, her sister Elena's boyfriend,
and nearly 100 others. Vladimir Putin, at the time Prime Minister under
President Boris El'tsin, released an official statement attributing the
bombing to Chechen terrorists. Four days after that attack on 19 Gyryanova
Ul., an apartment building on Kashirskoe Shosse was bombed, and on 16
September a truck bomb destroyed the facade of an apartment building in
Volgodonsk. In September 1999 alone, almost 300 people were killed in
apartment bombings in Russia.
As Disbelief unfolds,
Nekrasov draws us gradually, and often blatantly, to his ultimate
conclusion—that the Russian government sanctioned the bombing of the
building and actually planned a similar "scare" attack in the city of
Riazan. Every viewpoint in the film  supports this theory except for one
woman, the "White Russian," who blames Chechnya for the attack, and
states: "peace in the Caucuses has always been maintained by Russian
bayonets." In one of the most emotional scenes of the documentary, a
demolition crew destroys the remainder of the already bombed apartment
building as Tania and her sister discuss their newly-changed lives. The
hasty removal of all evidence by the secret service gives further credence
to the suspicious activity of the government. Disbelief has been
screened only a few times in Russia since its release, though Nekrasov has
said in interviews that he has not met any serious resistance to showing
the film there.
Tania asks her lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin:
"Are
you not afraid? By persisting in your investigations you are putting your
own life on the line?" "I have a cause and I believe it is just,"
answers Trepashkin. "Even my own former colleagues from the FSB will
testify that I've never deceived or betrayed anyone. So I am at peace
with myself." These former colleagues later arrested Trepashkin in
October of 2002 on the charge of illegal firearms possession for a gun
that Trepashkin claims the FSB planted in his car. He was found guilty in
the Moscow District Military court for illegal ammunition possession and
for disclosing classified information without elements of treason, and was
subsequently sentenced to four years in a non-prison penal settlement.
When Trepashkin was arrested, Nekrasov made another documentary compiled
from interviews the two did together; the master copy of this film was
stolen from Nekrasov's briefcase. 
Disbelief not only details the effects
of terrorism across the nation, but tells the story of Tania's personal
quest to define her relationship to her native country. For her there are
two Russias: the Russia before 8 September 1999 that exists only in her
heart, and the present-day Russia that may have had a role in the death of
her mother. She is in a state of disbelief as she claims: "I would never
believe people could do such a thing." When she visits the Dakhkilgovs,
a Chechen couple accused of being involved in the bombing, she learns how
deep the racism cuts through her country. It seems that the only
protagonist not subsumed with horror and disbelief about the events and
the current state of the nation is Sasha. The film's shocking images and
strong emotions are juxtaposed with his natural, childish folly.
Nevertheless, even with his American passport, Sasha is just as much a
part of the events of 19 Gyrianova Ul. despite his unawareness of their
consequences.
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