On ‘Antidote,’ and the Power and Perils of Investigative Journalism

Over the past three years, filmmaker James Jones — who made the FRONTLINE documentaries Secret State of North Korea and Saudi Arabia Uncovered — has been talking to us about the evolution of the latest feature documentary he has been working on. It is a chilling story of an investigative journalist going up against Vladimir Putin, of assassins and spies and political activists, and of the costs of opposing the Russian leader.

Now, after an award-winning run on the festival circuit, we’re proud to be able to present the U.S. broadcast premiere of that documentary tonight, May 6, on FRONTLINE.

Antidote follows Christo Grozev, whose reporting with the open-source investigative group Bellingcat has exposed Russian spies and assassins; and Evgenia Kara-Murza, whose husband, the prominent political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, was poisoned twice and sentenced to 25 years in a Russian prison. Over three years, the documentary chronicles how Grozev deals with the escalating dangers to him and his family, and it traces the extraordinary journey of the Kara-Murzas.

The film, which is a Passion Pictures and Bellingcat Production for FRONTLINE in association with Impact Partners, Channel 4 and M4 Studio, was described in Variety as a “high-stakes story about Vladimir Putin’s Russia, contemporary investigative journalism and the people who put their lives in jeopardy for what they believe in.”

It is the latest FRONTLINE documentary about journalists who have run afoul of governments they are reporting on — including A Dangerous Assignment (2024), Putin vs. the Press (2023) & A Thousand Cuts (2021).

We’re proud to showcase Antidote at this perilous moment, when independent journalism is truly under threat in so many places, and public media here in the U.S. itself is under attack.  

These are troubling trends. As I wrote last year in The Hill, if we don’t have journalists doing their jobs, we don’t have a record of the facts on the ground. The absence of that journalistic record harms us all, allowing disinformation, corruption and other abuses of power to proceed unchecked.

But the story that Antidote tells is also one of hope. Despite the threats against himself and his family, Grozev continues his work to expose Russian spies and assassins. And the Kara-Murzas are now reunited: Vladimir was released in a prisoner swap in 2024.

“I believe that it is harder to kill someone when the entire world is watching,” Evgenia says in the film, prior to her husband’s release, “so I’m trying to be as loud as I can.”

Antidote will be available to watch at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting May 6 at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel at 10/9c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.

Thank you for watching, and for supporting independent investigative journalism.