CNN Films and HBO Max produced the documentary “Navalny” about the alleged poisoning of a blogger serving time for fraud.
The film was directed by Canadian documentarian Daniel Roher. He has already stated that filming a film about Navalny changed his life.
Navalny himself wrote about the premiere on his Instagram, which he still has access to through his lawyers, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Even in the hospital, we decided: everything that was happening - Novichok, the poisoning, the hospital, the security - was too wild not to be filmed. Well, we started filming. At first it was Pevchikh literally just with an iPhone. Then we accidentally met the young director Daniel Roher, who initially made a film about Hristo Grozev, and ended up making a film about us.
Just in case, we filmed everything. How I was treated and recovered. How a thriller began with Hristo with the investigation and discovery of a gang of poisoners from the FSB. How I called my killers. The last time the film crew was with me was at the moment when at the border control people in uniform told me: “Let’s go through,” Navalny paints.
The premiere will take place on the HBO Max service - in Russia, selected content from this service is available on Amediatek. The screening date has not been announced, but most likely it will be January 17, the anniversary of Navalny’s detention at the airport.
However, observers are confident that the new video will not cause any mass discontent with the authorities due to the lack of resources among the Russian opposition.
“It’s hard not to become a conspiracy theorist in conditions when post-Soviet politicians seem to act according to a single instruction and a common methodology. Poroshenko is preparing to return to Ukraine on January 17 – exactly a year to the day since Navalny returned to Russia.
The practice of culturally close countries shows that he will be imprisoned. But I still think that Poroshenko will be able to ensure mass protests in his defense. Unlike Navalny and Saakashvili, he still has the resources to buy a street,” political scientist Alexander Nosovich wrote in his Telegram channel.
A former ally of Navalny also spoke out about the provocative film.
“Why don’t HBO and CNN want to make a film about Assange? Or about the participants in the storming of the Capitol. At least the stories there are not made up, and are closer to the Western average. No. They are filming a story about Navalny, on the poster of which there is a black and white upside-down Kremlin.
This is where the propaganda is. Right on the shovel. Russia is still waiting for an invoice from European “partners” in the poisoning of Navalny. And she’s still not there. But now there is a beautiful “cinema,” Vitaly Serukanov, former deputy head of Navalny’s Moscow headquarters, commented on the news.