{"id":61781,"date":"2025-08-11T15:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T15:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/61781\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T15:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T15:51:10","slug":"russians-at-war-director-producer-talk-direct-to-audience-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/61781\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Russians At War\u2019 Director & Producer Talk Direct-To-Audience Release"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDirector Anastasia Trofimova and producer Cornelia Principe are launching a direct-to-audience release this week of the former\u2019s controversial documentary Russians at War<\/a>, in a bid to get it seen after a year of protests and cancellations.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two-hour work gives sobering insight into the futility and carnage of armed conflict through the lives of Russia<\/a>-aligned soldiers on the front of the country\u2019s unprovoked war against Ukraine, with whom Trofimova embedded over a period of seven months.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter an incident-free world premiere at the Venice<\/a> Film Festival last year, the doc met with protests in Canada from pro-Ukraine groups ahead of its North American premiere at the Toronto<\/a> International Film Festival (TIFF), with the former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent, leading the charge.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe protestors accused the film of being Russian propaganda \u2013 in a war of Russia\u2019s instigation in which more than 13,500 Ukrainian civilians and between 60,000 to 100,000 military personal have been killed and another 10 million people have been displaced \u2013 although none of them had seen the film at that point. At least 250,000 Russian troops have died in the conflict. <\/p>\n

\n\tTIFF canceled the festival screening, instead playing the film in the TIFF Lightbox Theatre on the first Tuesday after its 2024 edition ended, using security staff who were still on site to ensure the safety of Trofimova, her producers and the spectators in the room.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tProtests against Russians at War at TIFF 2025<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMert Alper Dervis \/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnastasia had her very own security detail. I had someone following me around even when I went to the bathroom. When we were on stage for the Q&A, there was a line of security in front of us. People who came had to be security scanned. It was a quite a production, but the festival had to make sure everybody was safe,\u201d recounts Principe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Oscar-nominated Canadian producer (To Kill A Tiger) produced the documentary under her Raja Pictures banner with Sally Blake and Philippe Levasseur at Paris-based Capa Presse.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fallout would continue throughout the year with Athens and Zurich among festivals which pulled the film due to protests and security concerns.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrincipe also reveals that the International Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA<\/a>) rescinded an invitation issued in August 2024 for its Best of Fests sidebar saying they could not create a constructive dialog around the work.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat was surprising,\u201d she says of the disinvite, which occurred under the radar before the festival unveiled its lineup. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, the push back has only strengthened the film team\u2019s resolve to get the film seen, with the producers opting for a direct-to-audience strategy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe best counter to the protests and the anger is for people to see the film,\u201d says Principe. \u201c99% of the protests came from people who hadn\u2019t seen the film\u2026 I totally agree that peaceful protest is a great and constructive way to voice one\u2019s opinion, but it would be nice also to see the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPrincipe cites documentaries such as Brett Story and Stephen Maing\u2019s Union, following Amazon workers as they attempt to unionize, and Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which also released direct-to-audience, as inspirations for going down the self-distribution route.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor films that are potentially controversial for some communities or some groups or corporations, going direct-to-audience seems to be the way to go,\u201d says Principe. \u201cGetting it out there as far and wide as possible was really our plan and it seemed more and more after things happened in Canada and TIFF, that doing it ourselves was the way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWorking with the direct-to-audience platform of tech entertainment company Gathr, the producers have created the www.russiansatwar.com<\/a> website, where spectators will be able to gain paid access to the film from August 12.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt took months and months to get our website together. It\u2019s a very fulsome website with lots of content to give people background on the making of the film, frequently asked questions, criticisms that we address, all that is there,\u201d says Principe.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe release is worldwide but excludes Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, with the production planning to make it available in those territories for free at a later date.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s going to be a separate release because it will be free and we need to make sure that it can actually be accessed in Russia, says Principe.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn experienced TV producer and documentarian, who has also worked in Syria and Iraq, Trofimova knew the film would receive pushback from some quarters for the human light in which it portrayed the Russia-aligned soldiers but was not prepared for the full-out backlash it sparked as it embarked on its festival tour last year.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think it was easier to go to the front and to be in the war than to deal with what happened afterwards because it was so unexpected. The documentary community has been very supportive overall and very understanding, but what was a shock to me is, how easy it is to be accused of something that people say you did, not that you actually did or said yourself,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMost of the people who have been attacking this film, and the most vicious attacks, of course, have been happening online, have not seen the film\u2026 In Toronto, where we were the top news story for at least a week, journalists asked the protesters, \u2018Have you seen the film?\u2019 They would reply, \u2018No, we have not, and we refuse to.\u2019 \u00a0What was surprising for me was, why this anger directed at the film? Why this anger directed at me? Because it\u2019s like I became their personal enemy, or the film became their personal enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fallout has also raised questions for Trofimova around the power of coordinated deplatforming campaigns.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt has been quite interesting to realize how easy it is for anyone in the documentary community to be attacked and silenced by some sort of interest group, because it didn\u2019t take that much to be honest. A lot of the stuff is online. It\u2019s quite organized. There\u2019s been quite a coordinated defamation deplatforming campaign against this film,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s left quite a bit of damage. I\u2019m not talking about our emotional state, but rather the fact that it started off so well. It was receiving invitations from the world\u2019s top festivals and the attacks on it made it so much more difficult for people to program it and to see it. That was the shocking thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also questions the implications of what happened to her for other documentarians who want to tackle controversial and complex topics in the future<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt made me wonder how do we make complex films? It\u2019s a question for anyone who wants to take on a big, controversial problem in the world, and we have a lot of them. Now more than ever, documentaries have this huge responsibility to try to explain, to tackle them, to analyze them, to get in there. What do we have to be prepared for as filmmakers next time we go in?,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Russians At War\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTIFF<\/p>\n

\n\tTrofimova is not certain it is safe for her return to Russia any time soon given the unflattering light in which Russians at War portrays conditions at the front for the country\u2019s soldiers, but she hopes to able to return one day to continue a personal mission to capture Russian stories that are told neither in the local media, or internationally. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe thing about war documentaries is that if you\u2019re just faithfully observing and recording this reality, you cannot make anything but an anti -war film, because the longer you stay and the longer you see the futility and how people who are very dear to someone back home, they\u2019re just gone. And the same thing goes for both sides\u2026 it becomes very, very tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPrincipe notes how this time last year, she and Trofimova were iin Paris finishing post-production on the work ahead of the Venice premiere.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA year ago, we were looking forward to Venice. A year later, we\u2019re looking forward to releasing the film online, so that people can see it and judge for themselves,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey don\u2019t have to love the film. They have to don\u2019t agree with the film, but watch it and then, we\u2019d love to hear what you think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Director Anastasia Trofimova and producer Cornelia Principe are launching a direct-to-audience release this week of the former\u2019s controversial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,40171,337,6639,40172,3302,8787,18296],"class_list":["post-61781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-idfa","tag-movies","tag-russia","tag-russians-at-war","tag-toronto","tag-ukraine-war","tag-venice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}