Russians at War, by Russian-Canadian documentary filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, is set to be shown for the first time in North America at TIFF next week.Olivia Wong/Getty Images
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.
Ukrainian officials are urging the Toronto International Film Festival to cancel screenings of a documentary that follows Russian soldiers fighting against Ukraine, saying the film is propaganda that whitewashes their war crimes.
The film, Russians at War, by Russian-Canadian documentary filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, screened at the Venice Film Festival, and is set to be shown for the first time in North America at TIFF next week.
It 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 (CMF), a not-for-profit organization that receives its funding from the federal government and telecommunications companies.
In order to produce the film, Ms. Trofimova followed a Russian unit through occupied eastern Ukraine. A description on TIFF’s website says that the Russian soldiers “all come to realize that everything they heard about the war in Russian media is false. They begin to doubt their purpose – and fight only to survive.”
In a Sept. 5 letter obtained by The Globe and Mail, Ukraine’s consul-general in Toronto, Oleh Nikolenko, urged TIFF chief executive Cameron Bailey to remove the film from the festival’s schedule.
Mr. Nikolenko wrote that the Consulate General of Ukraine in Toronto, the Ukrainian embassy in Ottawa, and the non-profit Ukrainian Canadian Congress had been in “intensive communication” with senior management of the festival about the film for weeks.
He also took issue that blaming the media for the behaviour of the Russians who invaded Ukraine “infantilizes the criminals and removes moral and legal responsibility from them for their actions.”
“It is irresponsible to allow the Toronto International Film Festival, one of the most reputable world film stages, to be used to whitewash the responsibility of Russian soldiers committing war crimes in Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion,” Mr. Nikolenko wrote.
Director Anastasia Trofimova in Venice, Italy, on Sept. 5.ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images
TIFF did not respond to a request from The Globe for comment.
Ms. Trofimova issued a statement on Friday in response to what she described as attacks and accusations being directed toward her and the film.
“I want to be clear that this Canada-France co-production is an anti-war film made at great risk to all involved, myself especially,” she said. “I unequivocally believe that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unjustified, illegal and acknowledge the validity of the International Criminal Court investigation of war crimes in Ukraine.”
She had previously told reporters in Venice, while speaking of the Russian soldiers she met, that, “In Russia, they are these heroes who never die. In the West, they are mostly war criminals, war criminals, war criminals.”
“To me, the biggest shock was to see how ordinary they were,” she added. “Absolutely ordinary guys with families, with a sense of humour, with their own understanding of what’s happening in this war.”
Ms. Trofimova told reporters that she saw no signs of war crimes. “I think in Western media, that’s what Russian soldiers are associated with at this point, because there were no other stories. This is another story.”
In his letter, Mr. Nikolenko also raised concerns about Ms. Trofimova joining a Russian invading unit in Russian-occupied territory to shoot the film, saying it “grossly violates Ukrainian legislation.” And he noted that Ms. Trofimova had previously filmed documentaries for the Russian state-controlled media company RT. Canada banned broadcasters from carrying RT in 2022 and has imposed sanctions on its editor-in-chief.
Mr. Nikolenko also took issue with the fact that the film received public funds.
Mathieu Chantelois, the Canada Media Fund’s executive vice-president of marketing and public affairs, said the film was funded through its broadcaster envelope program, where broadcasters independently choose projects to receive CMF money. TVO used its allocation under the program to fund Russians at War.
The CMF confirmed that its financial commitment to the film was $340,000. The film’s credits also list the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund, the Rogers Documentary Fund, the Rogers TeleFund, Ontario Creates and France’s Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée as supporters.
TVO Media Education Group said in a statement that Russians at War is “at its core an anti-war film.”
“It is unauthorized by Russian officials and was made at great personal risk to the filmmaker, who was under constant threat of arrest and incarceration for trying to tell an unofficial story. This film shows the increasing disillusionment of Russian soldiers as their experience at the front doesn’t jive with the media lies their families are being told at home.”
The media group said the film was produced with the support of cultural agencies in France and Canada, and that it is a documentary made in the tradition of independent war correspondence. The statement said the group encourages people to see the documentary for themselves.
With a report from Reuters