The Oscars are heading into a Russian-Ukrainian geopolitical minefield.
out of five movies chose Up for best documentary this year by the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, one is about Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny and the other “thatched house, About a Ukrainian orphanage in the country’s war-torn east.
While neither film will warm Russian President Vladimir Putin’s heart, the competition between the two has sparked conflict between Ukrainians and the Russian opposition.
“Ukraine has been invaded by Russia and tens of thousands have been killed by Russian forces, millions have been driven out of their homes. So, I can understand the reaction to a film that deals with the fate of one – Russian – man Navalny is focused on,” said Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev in the film. “That’s why I won’t start arguing with those Ukrainians who are upset about the film being nominated for an Oscar.”
“Navalny,” Directed by Canadian filmmaker Daniel Rohr and produced by HBO Max and CNN Films, tells the story of the opposition leader who led a growing political movement against Putin, is nearly killed by a nerve agent and then returns to Moscow despite the threat of arrest. Came; he is now rotten In a Russian prison. The film touches on Navalny’s nationalist views and his dalliance with far-right forces, but it does little for the Ukrainian people on Navalny’s stance on the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
At the time he described Putin’s annexation as a “gross violation of all international norms”, but added that the peninsula would not go back to Ukraine. “Is Crimea a sandwich or something you can take and give back? I don’t think so,” he Said Echo of Moskvy Radio.
But her political leanings haven’t stopped a wave of support for her bravery in standing up to Putin.
“Navalny” received widespread recognition, distribution on HBO Max, a Times Square poster and was praised by Hollywood stars. Actor Hugh Jackman has supported the film in a video recommendation. Tweet.
Jackman said, “This is a documentary about a guy who is literally putting his life at risk every day.”
However, Ukrainians, deeply traumatized by the ongoing Russian invasion, see the documentary as an attempt to whitewash Navalny, whom they accuse of being a Russian nationalist despite opposing Putin.
Tetiana Shevchuk, a lawyer with the Anti-Corruption Action Center, has complained that Navalny’s supporters are pressing for his release, but that he has done little to oppose the war.
“They were silent for 11 months of the war, but now that the Oscars are on the horizon, they have become more active and mimic the anti-war movement. If the Academy awards them, it will be another tone-deaf gesture, Shevchuk said.
Questioning Navalny’s credentials could spark outrage.
Maria Pevchikh, who heads Navalny’s team of anti-corruption investigators and one of the documentary’s producers, declined to answer Politico’s questions on that topic, saying they were aggressive and unprofessional.
However, Pevchikh is scathing about accusations that Navalny and his supporters are spinning the war around the war in order not to risk offending nationalist Russians.
“Is that why Navalny’s supporters have been talking about the war to an almost entirely Russian audience of ten million people on a specially created channel since the first day of the war? Without stopping for a day? Apparently it A smart attempt from our side not to lose our audience Tweeted,
less publicized but still visible
,house made of splinters, A co-production of Denmark, Ukraine, Sweden and Finland, it tells the story of the children of an exclusive orphanage in the eastern Ukrainian town of Lischansk just before Russia’s full-scale invasion last year; The city is now an area of ruins and is under Russian occupation.
“The children are all safe now. He was sent abroad. and their teachers have been internally displaced to other regions of Ukraine. So, they are also relatively safe,” said Azad Safarov, assistant director of the film. “However, the special orphanage was destroyed after the missile attack.”
Splinters received strong reviews and recognition at cinema festivals last year, but it “made less of a splash” than “Navalny,” said Daria Basel of Moon Man production studios, a Ukrainian co-producer of the film.
“The film, for example, does not have a US distributor. Therefore, the result – an Oscar nomination – indicates that the film did indeed impress academics and perhaps they just advised each other to see the film, and thus the film was nominated,” Bassel sums it up: “Word of Mouth Radio.
Asked what she thought about the Navalny documentary competing for the same prize, Bassel said everyone fights for what’s important to them. For him, it is important to talk about Ukraine and how Russia’s war has devastated his country.
“I don’t want us to be put across the table with the Russian opposition and pressured to start a dialogue,” Basel said.
Navalny’s thoughts
In “Navalny,” Grozaev, Russia’s lead investigator with Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, helps the opposition leader find out who tried to kill him by planting a Novichok nerve agent in his underwear.
However, Grozaev initially had significant reservations about Navalny due to his past public statements regarding Crimea, his view of Russia, and more.
Grozev said, “I questioned several Russian colleagues about him, who has an uncontested liberal, non-imperialist worldview, and all of them were of the opinion that he had ranged from an opportunistic populist to a staunch democrat with liberal democracy values.” have evolved into.”
The journalist spent days arguing with Navalny about politics, concluding that he was mainstream and not imperialist. According to Grozaev, nowadays Navalny believes that Russia should be decentralised, the power of the president should be minimized and that a successful Ukraine would be a competitive benchmark for Russia.
But Crimea remains a sore point; Navalny cannot break through the overwhelming view of all political opinion among his countrymen that the peninsula cannot be returned to Ukraine.
“We argued with him a lot on his views on Crimea. While I never agreed with his view, I must also admit that it is very different from what many anti-Navalny activists claim,” Grozaev said.
According to him, Navalny still sees the annexation of Crimea as a gross violation of international law. But now that it’s done, Russia and Ukraine should sit down and draw up a long-term plan to give residents the right to decide which nation they belong to — after both countries’ “advertising campaigns” and a UN-controlled period. are related to. of independence. However, Ukrainians warn that the idea may not make sense as more than 800,000 Russian colonists have moved into Crimea since it was annexed.
“In my opinion, Navalny and his anti-corruption team are now doing everything they can to stop the war – including shouting against the war at every court hearing, writing anti-imperialist and anti-war op-eds, leading to He gets more punishment, and his organization is paying fines for anti-war demonstrations and running a separate full-time anti-war TV channel,” Grozev said.
“Unfortunately, none of this has sparked mass protests in Russia, and I can fully understand the feeling many Ukrainians feel that all Russians bear collective guilt for not doing enough to stop this barbarism.” do,” he said.