Alina Simone, A97, A97 (BFA), knew that going to Siberia as an independent filmmaker was risky. Authorities would certainly challenge her purpose: to tell the story of Natalia Zubkova.

A mother of three and independent journalist, Zubkova was the driving force behind viral YouTube videos bringing global attention to the catastrophic consequences of coal mining in her hometown. In addition to the air and water pollution tied to nine open pits, smoldering underground fires were leaking toxic gas into homes. But with a Russian regime heavily reliant on a massive coal industry as a source of cheap energy, Zubkova was soon under surveillance and the target of death threats.

Zubkova’s courage resonated with Simone, and eager to share it with a wider audience, she spent three weeks shadowing her—before she herself was hauled into court for illegal filming and banned from returning to Russia. Her filming would become the foundation and catalyst for her award-winning debut documentary, Black Snow.

Directed by Simone and co-produced with Academy Award-nominated producer Kirstine Barfod, Black Snow premiered at Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX this past spring, where it won the FACT Award for best investigative documentary. Accolades have since continued, with the Sustainable Future Award at the Sydney International Film Festival, a Cinema Eye award, and the SIMA Documentary Jury Prize for Transparency.

The film also has the support of an iconic environmental activist: Erin Brockovich, the paralegal who, in 1993, was instrumental in making the case for groundwater contamination linked to cancer, and who continues to fight for the health of communities exposed to toxic hazards. At the Black Snow North American/U.S. premiere this past fall in New York, Brockovich signed on as executive producer.

“From the beginning, everyone I told about Natalia said she sounded like the ‘Erin Brockovich’ of Russia,” recalled Simone. “It was very rewarding that the actual Erin Brockovich loved the film when we screened it for her.” 

By extension, her role as executive producer “brings even more legitimacy to Natalie’s stature as an environmental activist. And since our movie is subtitled and in Russian, I see her as a symbolic bridge to American and Western audiences.” 

At Tufts, Simone studied English literature at the School of Arts and Sciences as well documentary photography, film, and video at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (now SMFA at Tufts). Prior to her documentary debut, she was a journalist; her work has appeared inThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic and on the PRX radio news magazine The World. With a creative career that also includes indie folk-rock musician and novelist, Simone sees her first documentary as a return to an early fascination for storytelling, one that expands her ongoing pursuit of truth, revelation, and inspiration.

Can you talk about your connection to the documentary format? 

Documentary films were always a passion, going back to when I was a teenager. At Tufts, I found inspiration at SMFA by studying with Bill Burke [professor of the practice] and Jim Dow [now emeritus]. They had a profound impact on my love of documentary photography. But after Tufts, the analog world of film that I knew vanished quickly and I leaned toward writing. When I went to Russia, I had to teach myself how to overcome my intimidation of the digital camera and learn it to the best of my abilities.

How did you find the story for Black Snow? 

I have a Google alert set to “asylum seekers,” with whom I have a personal connection. I was born in Soviet Ukraine and came to the U.S. after my father [theoretical physicist Alexander Vilenkin, the L. and J. Bernstein Professor of Evolutionary Science in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Tufts for 17 years] was blacklisted by the KGB. He and my mother came to America in 1976 as political refugees.

So I have always been fascinated by asylum seekers; they encapsulate big-deal political issues in a personal character-driven story. They are like a concentrated bouillon cube: full of much larger issues but wrapped in a very intimate and emotional story.

As it happened, a Google Alert led me to a news story about asylum seekers in Canada from the Kiselyovsk, a remote Siberian coal mining city. When residents discovered that an abandoned mine had caught fire, pushing toxic gas into their homes, they turned to Natalia, who had shown a natural aptitude as a reporter. Her news coverage of the coal fires on her own YouTube channel went viral. I was struck by Natalia’s determination to tell the full extent of the environmental catastrophe. It wasn’t only about nine massive open coal pits, but also toxic fumes that seeped from underground slag heaps and invaded homes, and unregulated mining that rained down a fine layer of coal dust, turning snow black. Despite all the evidence, the authoritarian government came to the defense of the coal industry. They refused requests from some 70 families to be resettled, saying the fires were merely fueled by trash.

As I listened, my mind started churning. First of all, I thought things must be very bad if they went to this radical extreme of reaching out to Canada for asylum. Second, they just wanted to be resettled, which the Russian government brazenly denied, claiming those underground fires were just trash fires. The situation sounded scary, but I thought, clearly, this can be resolved, given the overwhelming evidence that Natalia was videotaping. I was naive!

As a storyteller, I was curious to learn more about the woman who was doing the filming, and after Natalia and I started videochatting, I was more and more excited to meet someone who no one knows but who did something extraordinary. Even amid threats to her life and to the personal safety of her children, even as she struggled with the emotional toll of her quest, she persevered. I felt compelled to lift her story to the same level of her personal intensity.

What impact do you hope Black Snow will have?

I hope Black Snow will expose how Russia’s slide into authoritarianism, coupled with an unrestrained mining industry, is creating an environmental catastrophe. But I hope it goes beyond that too. If a documentary film can do one great shining thing, it is to provide proof of our shared humanity.

What’s next?

I’m in post-production now on another film about a group of men who walk the border between Georgia and Russia, unarmed, to prevent the Russians from stealing Georgian land in the night. They’re the last line of defense, and, like Natalia, they are compelling, and that’s essential. To make a documentary, you have to be passionate about the person at the heart of your story, or about the people who are the story’s engine. That’s what I look for: ordinary people becoming superheroes.

Festival screenings in 2025 include Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Montana in February and others across the United States, Europe, and South America. Follow on Instagram for updates.