Nadia Tolokonnikova, Masha Alyokhina, and Katia Samutsevich had no idea that singing in church would get them into so much trouble. After all, their punk rock-powered artists collective Pussy Riot had previously played a ditty in Red Square called “Putin Pissed Himself” and only got fined a few rubles.

But after the feminist trio, clad in homemade ski masks, thrashed around on the no-women-allowed altar of Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral to perform 40 seconds worth of a raucous anthem decrying the connection between church and state, the women landed in jail where they faced seven years in prison on “hooliganism” charges.





Meanwhile, their “Punk Prayer” video went viral, prompting dozens of Free Pussy Riot protests along with shout-outs of support from free speech enthusiasts ranging from Bjork, the Beastie Boys, and Madonna to Paul McCartney and Sting.

Max Pozdorovkin’s new documentary, Pussy Riot: Punk Prayer, which debuts Monday on HBO, follows the Russian performance artists, widely known simply as Nadia, Masha, and Katia, as they explain their actions to prosecutors while sitting inside aquarium-like glass booths.

Max Pozdorovkin and Mike Lerner

The Russian-born Pozdorovkin, who moved to New York City with his UN translator mother when he was 12, says he and codirector Mike Lerner aimed to dig beneath the circus-like trial antics to acquaint viewers with the women behind the candy-colored balaclavas.

“We want to show Pussy Riot as radical artists rather than just martyrs who are oppressed for free speech,” says Pozdorovkin. “Yes, they sing punk rock songs, but Nadia, Masha, and Katia think of themselves as conceptual artists who are part of this avant garde lineage,” he tells Co.Create. “They see their art as being video and discourse. They’re interested in the debate it can provoke.”

Inspired by America’s riot grrrl movement, British left-wing band Angelic Upstarts, and European Situationists’ street-theater activism, Pussy Riot’s outrageous theatrics galvanized passionate responses for and against. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Moscow to protest Pussy Riot’s trial. Thousands more, led by bearded religious conservatives Pozdorovkin calls “biker priests,” denounced the women on government-controlled television shows as “witches.”