(Toronto) Daniel Roher, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary on Alexei Navalny, says he is much more interested in keeping the imprisoned Russian opponent alive than promoting his film.
“It’s an extraordinarily bittersweet moment,” admits the Toronto-born filmmaker, adding that the film’s success is overshadowed by the darker reality of its subject: a man held in solitary confinement in a gulag.
“He hasn’t seen his family for a year and a half and he’s in a very dangerous place,” he said. It’s not just the promotion of a film or an awards campaign: it’s a vital mission, to keep alive this guy who, for millions of Russians, represents a flickering light of hope for the future. of Russian democracy. »
Alexei Navalny has been vocal in his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin for years, posting videos on his YouTube channel, which currently has more than 6 million subscribers, accusing the Kremlin of corruption.
Navalny was arrested in Russia in January 2021 after returning from Germany, where he had recovered from nerve agent poisoning in August 2020 — an attack he blames on the Kremlin. He was later sentenced to a two-and-a-half-year prison term — which in March 2022 was extended to nine years — for a violation of his parole in a 2014 embezzlement case — which, according to the dissident, was politically motivated.
The film Navalnywhich won the BAFTA for Best Documentary last month in the UK, and is currently available on Crave, is both a look at the opponent’s attempts to uncover the criminals who poisoned him, but also an appeal to his supporters to put pressure on the Kremlin in the event of his prolonged incarceration.
CNN FILMS/HBO MAX/WARNER BROS PHOTO, SUPPLIED BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
Alexei Navalny
Carte blanche
Documentary maker Roher and journalist Christo Grozev of digital forensics website Bellingcat investigated to uncover details of the nerve agent attack, including the people who carried it out.
In one of the film’s most memorable sequences, Navalny, impersonating an angry superior, directly calls one of his would-be assailants, before being told the details of the assassination attempt.
Roher says he had carte blanche with Navalny when he met him before his imprisonment. His film crew had regular access to the leader in his hideout in remote Germany countryside.
“I don’t pose as a journalist, but as a filmmaker, by challenging my subject on his nationalist past, for example: that’s why I was able to ask him what I wanted, which allows me to make a film more valuable and interesting. »
The director admits that Navalny’s logic of aligning himself with ultranationalists opposed to Putin’s regime, for example, has been difficult for him to follow. “His political philosophy is that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but at the same time, I found his reasoning to be very uncomfortable for me,” Roher explains. “But I can understand that creating a democracy from authoritarianism is tricky. »
No news from Navalny
The film is in competition for the Oscars on Sunday against the Canadian-American co-production In the heart of the volcanoesabout the life and career of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, to the American opioid saga All the Beauty and the BloodshedOscar winner Laura Poitras (Citizenfour), to the New Delhi Bird Conservation Story All That Breathesand to the Ukrainian orphanage portrait A House Made of Splinters.
While the documentary Navalny has had great international success, Daniel Roher says that it has been nine months since he received a message from the imprisoned opponent. “He has never been in such danger since the very beginning of his prison term; he is the only prisoner of the Russian criminal system who is in perpetual solitary confinement. »
As well as winning a BAFTA in the UK, the documentary, produced by CNN, also recently won the People’s Choice Award for American Documentary and the ‘Festival Favourite’ award at Sundance.
Daniel Roher hopes one day to show the film to Navalny himself. “I only have to rely on the hope that Navalny will survive his ordeal,” he said. He will be free, Russia will turn a corner and I will be able to go to Moscow for the first time, rent a cinema and show him our film. »