On March 15, less than three weeks after his country invaded Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu penned a letter to the Minister of Culture demanding that the film and television work of Ukrainian actor-turned-president Volodymyr Zelensky be removed from the cultural agenda of the Russian Federation”, Citing efforts to rally the public behind President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression.
He was also mentioned in his complaint: two-time Academy Award nominee Alexander Rodniansky (“Leviathan”, “Loveless”), the Kyiv-born producer who made Russia home for two decades.
Rodnyansky had already fled the country. On March 1, his friend received a tip-off that his opposition to the Ukraine war had put him in the government’s crosshairs. Rodnyansky and his wife left on the same day. “I have severed my business relations with Russia,” said the producer. diverse. “I left everything behind. The company, the house, everything. Everything I had.”
For the past two months, Rodnyansky has been traveling between Europe and Los Angeles, where his production is based on AR content. While managing personal and professional obligations suddenly thrown into flux, the producer was also advising President Zelensky and assisting in efforts to broker an end to the war. Rodnyansky knew the president from his days at the head of the Ukrainian TV channel 1 + 1, which often worked with the former actor and comedian.
Despite nearly three decades of living and working in Russia, where he became one of the country’s most successful and acclaimed producers, Rodniansky insists there was no question of split loyalty once the Russian army began its conquest. I have always been a Ukrainian citizen living there. I never got Russian citizenship. “I never wanted to,” he said. “I’ve always had an emotional attachment to Ukraine. So when? [the invasion] It happened, I had no doubts.”
More than 15,000 Russians were arrested in anti-war protests early in the war, as the Kremlin quickly quelled dissent against what it called a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Although he has safely fled the country, many of Rodniansky’s friends and associates have been detained and questioned over petty crimes such as a social media post opposing the war. Artists, actors, filmmakers, and celebrities have been specifically identified by the government and pro-Kremlin media. “I saw myself on a list of traitors and enemies,” Rodniansky said.
This experience left him reflecting on his life in Russia, the “nature of violence”, and the brutality of the Russian state in its unprovoked attack on his homeland. Pictures of atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, such as the massacre of defenseless civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Buka, left Rodnyansky “speechless”. However, he also acknowledged that the Putin regime was no less brutal in its attacks on its own people. “What the world saw in Bucha … was tested in Russia,” he said. “It’s been a Russian reality for years.”
Amid calls for a boycott of Russian companies and sanctions against Putin, his inner circle, and the many oligarchs who profited from their ties to the Kremlin, Rodniansky nonetheless remains defiant that voices of dissent in Russia should not be silenced through cultural boycotts. He also defended the work of Kinoprime, a $100 million film fund set up by billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has been sanctioned by British lawmakers over his alleged close ties to Putin.
Rodniansky, who served on Kinoprime’s advisory board but has not received any funding from it, said the fund has consistently supported “managers who have been publicly humiliated many times by the state, by the state media, [and] They have been described as traitors and enemies of the people because of their anti-war and anti-regime stances.” Among them is Kirill Serebnikov, the controversial director and Putin critic who recently concluded a nearly five-year legal ordeal over what his supporters described as trumped-up and politically motivated charges. Featuring Serebrennikov’s latest film, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” ”, which received funding from Kinoprime, in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
Rudniansky continued: “I think this fund is doing a great job, and it would be very unfair to allow great filmmakers and their films made absolutely free, independently, in a true free spirit — it would be unfair to make them hostages of sanctions. [against Abramovich]. “
In Moscow, Rodnyansky has left behind an estimated 15 series in development and production, although his Los Angeles-based plank, which last year signed a first-sight deal with Apple to produce international, multilingual shows for Apple Plus TV, It was not affected by the war. Drops.
Projects on the list of AR content include the Soviet-era drama “Red Rainbow,” which won the Mania Forum Series Award for Best Project last August; “The President’s Interrogation,” adapted from former CIA analyst John Nixon’s account of the interrogation of Saddam Hussein, directed by Ziad Douiri. and “Khan,” an epic action series about Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire, led by showrunner Chris Collins (“Sons of Anarchy”), which was acquired by North American Fox Entertainment.
Feature films include “What Happens”, the first English-language film directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, who co-starred with Rodnyansky in the Academy Award-nominated dramas “Leviathan” and “Loveless”; and “Monica”, the third film from Kantemir Balagov, whose “Beanpole” by Rodniansky won Best Director at Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2019.
At the moment, Rodnyansky sees a dark future for his former Russian colleagues. “I do not think so [there is the possibility of] Which Russian film market at the moment”, he said, asking for the possibility of a boom in state-supported films and national films. The Russian state will finance some films and TV shows. But it is far from the market [existed] Before, because I do not…I imagine there are entrepreneurs who are willing and able to support the production of films or TV shows.”
However, the impact goes beyond just the potential to finance, produce and distribute future projects. Many decent Russians feel ashamed. It’s a very bad time for them. Even for people who never supported Putin, who never voted for him, and who protested. “These people are ashamed because they are good people,” Rodniansky said. “The fact that such a huge country has become in many ways pariah, isolated, even more isolated, is a tragedy for Russia.”
The producer said it was too early to say what the future holds, and predicted that a return to Russia could be possible “when the war is over, [and] When Putin is finished.” He added, “But at the moment, I don’t think that is possible. I think that Russia should be punished in many ways. It deserves.”
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