The wife of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who survived an assassination attempt ordered by the Kremlin, had a message to deliver to the world after the film Navalny was awarded the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film. Yulia Navalnaya said:
“My husband is in prison just for telling the truth. My husband is in prison just for defending democracy. Alexei, I am dreaming of the day when you will be free and our country will be free. Stay strong, my love.”
Navalnaya appeared on stage Sunday at the awards ceremony with the couple’s two children, daughter Dasha and son Zahar, as well as those who made the CNN Films/Warner Bros. documentary.
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In accepting the statuette, the documentary’s director Daniel Roher said:
“To the Navalny family, Julia, Dasha and Zahar, thank you for your courage, the world is with you, and there’s one person who couldn’t be with us here tonight — Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, who remains in solitary confinement for what he calls — I want to make sure we get his words exactly right — ‘Vladimir Putin’s unjust war of aggression in Ukraine.’”
“I would like to dedicate this award to Navalny, to all political prisoners around the world. Alexei, the world has not forgotten your vital message to us all. We cannot, we must not be afraid to oppose dictators and authoritarianism wherever rears its head.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov gave a thumbs down to the Oscar win for Navalny, the official TASS news agency reported Monday.
"I cannot judge the documentary’s qualities because I haven’t seen it," Peskov noted. "However, even though I haven’t seen it, I dare say that there is an element of politicization of the issue. Hollywood sometimes does not hesitate to politicize its work, so such things happen. Still, I wouldn’t talk about the cinematic merits of the film."
Navalny premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2022, where it won the Festival Favorite Award and the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary. It also won the BAFTA and Producers Guild Awards for best documentary.
Roher began working on the documentary about the Russian anti-corruption crusader in November 2020. At the time, Navalny was recovering in Germany from a botched August 2020 assassination attempt using the Novichok nerve agent, which was ordered by the Kremlin.
Roher had met Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian-born journalist working with the international investigative site Bellingcat. Grozev had been investigating who tried to poison Navalny. The director then persuaded Navalny to do the documentary. Roher, a Canadian, told The New York Times in a May 2022 interview:
I invited him to imagine the possible future where he goes back to Russia, as he told us he was planning on doing, and he gets arrested, and he’s languishing in prison a year from now. I suggested, “You need some sort of vehicle that can keep your name and your plight in the headlines.” I think he appreciated the chutzpah and energy that I brought.
Grozev actually managed to track down phone numbers for the hit squad that tried to poison Navalny. In the film’s most dramatic scene, Navalny places cold calls to each member of the assassination team, posing as an FSB official inquiring why the assassination didn’t go as planned. Navalny finally reaches one of the men, who confirmed details of the plot. Roher told the Times:
There was this sense of disbelief after the call. We were all hysterical. It was absolutely riveting. …
This is the most important thing I’ll ever film in my life. This is a security breach at the highest levels of the Russian security services that is so embarrassing. I was like, the world, Russian people, need to understand what this is and what happened. ...
This was a government agent on an unsecure line, in meticulous detail, explaining exactly how they tried to poison the leader of the opposition.
Roher, unlike some prominent U.S. journalists who have held off reporting scoops until publication of their books, had no problem letting Navalny immediately post details about the phone conversation online rather than wait until the documentary’s release. Roher interviewed Navalny just before his return to Russia in January 2021. Navalny was arrested at a Moscow airport and convicted of violating parole on an earlier charge. He was later sentenced to an additional nine years in prison on alleged fraud and contempt charges. He is now being held at a maximum security penal colony 150 miles east of Moscow, spending much of the time in solitary confinement amid growing concerns about his worsening health.
The documentary has taken on even more relevance following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago. In the Times interview, Roher said:
What I hope this film reminds the world, and what I hope Navalny’s story reminds the world, is that Vladimir Putin is not Russia and Russia is not Vladimir Putin. Ultimately what I think Aleksey offers the Russian people is a different vision of what their country could be.
Hopefully the day will come when Navalny has the chance to see the film about himself.
(The documentary is available for screening on HBO Max.)