Anastasia Trofimova, director of the documentary 'Russians at War', in Venice, Italy on Sept. 5.Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters
Update: TVO says it will no longer support documentary that follows Russian soldiers in Ukraine
Ontario public broadcaster TVO, which helped fund the documentary Russians at War, says the organization will no longer support or air the film after days of growing outcry over its presence at the Toronto International Film Festival.
On Sept. 12, TIFF announced it was cancelling screenings of Russians at War, citing security concerns. Read more here.
In the closing moments of the new documentary Russians at War, a mother grieving the loss of her son on the front lines of the Russian invasion of Ukraine asks the camera, teary-eyed, “Who needs this war?” Yet the question is posed from a perspective rarely heard from since Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine in 2022: one inside Russia itself, with the doc focused on chronicling the lives, and deaths, of Russian soldiers.
It is partly why the film by Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, which is set to make its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 13, is so controversial.
Following criticisms of the film after its world debut at the Venice Film Festival this past week, Ukraine’s consul-general in Toronto, Oleh Nikolenko, has urged TIFF to pull the doc from its lineup, saying it whitewashes the war crimes perpetrated by Russian troops.
The documentary was produced in association with two Canadian public broadcasters, Ontario’s TVO and British Columbia’s Knowledge Network, and partly funded through the Canada Media Fund, a not-for-profit organization that receives its funding from the federal government and telecommunications companies.
Ahead of her film’s TIFF debut, Trofimova, who has noted that she “unequivocally” believes Russia’s invasion is unjustified and illegal, spoke exclusively with The Globe and Mail about the controversy.
You were embedded alone with Russian soldiers as they went to the front lines, with no other crew member present. How did that develop?
When the war started, I was in Russia filming anything that I could get my hands on to understand the new reality that we were all plunged into: anti-war protests, human-rights activists. Toronto’s Cornelia Principe, a producer who I’d met before, started working on this with me, but it was a completely different film for the first eight months. Then I met a soldier, Ilya. Soldiers are the main actors of the war, but completely hidden. In Russian media, they’re portrayed as heroes who never bleed. In the West, it was only as war criminals. With Ilya, I knew I had unique access to go to the front. So of course I took it.
Was there any official permission obtained, or any dialogue with the Russian state?
There was none, because they’d never allow me to go. Even the state-funded media that the government trusts, very few go to the front and when they do it’s very managed. I had been working at the CBC, and then they got kicked out of Russia in the summer of 2022. So, I didn’t have a press card. I was self-employed. I couldn’t have even applied for official accreditation.
Before the CBC, you worked for the Russian state-controlled media company RT, which is banned in Canada. Naturally, this has cast a propagandistic shadow over your new film.
I worked for RT Documentary, not RT News. RTD is a sister channel of RT. When I worked there from 2014 through 2020, my focus was on the Middle East. I had an obsession on all topics concerning ISIS. Originally, I put forth two conditions on my employment: I’ll never have any narration in my films, and there will never be any correspondents. I would never have someone saying, “We’re on the border of Iran and Syria and this feels like this,” because that’s where you can add narrative that you haven’t filmed yourself. I offered them cinéma vérité, for television, and they agreed. And then the relatively liberal atmosphere in which we were working started to change, so I quit to start working with the CBC.
In this film, we don’t see any of the devastation caused by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. There are no Ukrainian voices. Why limit the perspective?
Because I had no access to the Ukrainian side. There are few journalists able to work in both countries. For me to go to Ukraine as a Russian, I would be branded a spy or attacked. The fact that I used to work for RTD doesn’t help. I wouldn’t have been able to cover both sides of the front.
Director Anastasia Trofimova in her documentary "Russians at War."Supplied
The Russian soldiers onscreen start off mostly convinced that they’re on the right side of history, with one repeating the Putin lie about how they’re there to fight Nazism. And yet there’s never any pushback from you. Why not provide context?
I had no idea I would be able to film this world. It was nothing short of a miracle, because I was missing this human portrait from the war on the Russian side. Anything they said, I was there to listen, not to preach about what I know about the war. They were completely shrouded from the rest of the world. The Nazism, we hear a lot about that in Russian media. But it’s their reality. When making documentaries, we want to show the reality of people and their motivations – what they believe. But you see, I ask him again later in the film why he’s still fighting, and he says he doesn’t even know.
Ukraine’s consul-general in Toronto has said that by filming in Russian-occupied territory alongside the troops, you “grossly violated” Ukrainian legislation.
Journalists travel to war zones often without permission of the state. This is how we’re able to get a story that’s not sanctioned by the state. When I went with Ilya, I had no idea I would be able to stay there. I got this incredible chance – did the consul-general expect that I would phone up the embassy in Kyiv and ask if it was okay? This is what journalists do: We follow the story where it goes.
There is a lot of conjecture online about whether or not the film received Russian approval or funding.
One hundred per cent, no. I’m trying to be calm, but I want to ask how the hell does anyone think the state would pay me to go to places where Russian state media is not even allowed? There’s a lot of criticism online because I worked for RT. We also have to understand that Russia is the world’s biggest country and RT is Russia’s biggest broadcaster. If you can make the stories that you’re not ashamed of, then you go for it.
You’re in Paris now – do you feel that you can go back to Russia after the release of this film?
We’ll be waiting for the Russian reaction. Maybe I’m a bit naive in that I would hope to be able to go back. I have this privileged position, because I’ve spent half my life in Canada, half in Russia. I understand both views of the world, and I respect both. What I’ve been seeing with this war is the bridges that united people are completely destroyed. We don’t hear people talking about peace. I wish that more documentary filmmakers would be able to go to Russia to make these stories. It’s not a good idea to just cut each other off.
This interview has been condensed and edited.