The true story is of Ivan Sanchin, the KGB officer who was Stalin&#39s private film projectionist from 1939 until Stalin&#39s death. Told from Sanchin&#39s view, the sympathetic but tragically flawed hero, squirrel, maintains unwavering faith in his &quotMaster&quot despite the arrest of his neighbors and his involvement with their daughter, his wife&#39s affair with the chilling State Security chief Lavrentii Beria and her tragic decline, and the deadly political machinations within the Kremlin he witnesses firsthand.