Navalny

In the aftermath of the startling and full of unanswered questions death of the political prisoner Alexei Navalny, who had been repeatedly persecuted by Vladimir Putin’s regime, before leaving his final breath at a maximum-security prison in the Arctic, the breathtaking documentary that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2023, seems to foreshadow in the hardest way the fate of the Russian activist, while rendering homage to his political legacy. The documentary unfolds a past murder attempt, shedding light onto the dramatic events of August 2020, when Navalny fell into a coma and was rushed from Siberia to Germany. The blood tests Navalny was submitted to, according to the official report issued by the German government, bore proof that he had been poisoned by the neurotoxic agent Novichok, a method systematically used in a series of shadowy events against political dissidents in Russia. An HBO Max and CNN Films co-production, the film takes a close insight at Alexei Navalny, as he bravely investigates the murder attempt that he narrowly survived, with the invaluable support of the journalistic research group Bellingcat, in an agonizing effort to collect evidence against the perpetrators and the instigators of the attack. Navalny gradually evolves into a universal allegory on the human fight against authority, totalitarianism, and censorship, unraveling the thread of a dark conspiracy, where reality transcends even the wildest imagination.

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Direction: Daniel Roher

Cinematography: Niki Waltl

Editing: Langdon Page, Maya Daisy Hawke

Actors: Alexei Navalny

Production: HBO Max, CNN Films

Producers: Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller, Shane Boris

Executive producer: Amy Entelis, Courtney Sexton, Maria Pevchikh

Format: DCP

Color: Color

Production Country: USA

Production Year: 2022

Duration: 99'

Contact: Dogwoof

Awards/Distinctions: Best Documentary Feature – Academy Awards 2023, Best Documentary – BAFTA Awards 2023, Audience Award, Festival Favorite Award – Sundance FF 2022, Best Documentary – Cleveland IFF 2022, Special Jury Prize – Seattle IFF 2022, Schools Student Choice Award – Hot Docs 2022, Audience Award, Big Screen Doc Award – Millenium Docs Against Gravity 2022, Cinema for Peace Award 2022, Best Political Documentary – Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards 2022

Daniel Roher

Filmography

2013 Kids of the Rocket Siren (short)
2015 Conversations with a Dead Prime Minister (short)
2017 Ghosts of Our Forest
2019 Once Were Brothers
2022 Navalny