Russian army movie causes a scandal at Venice Film Festival

At last week’s Venice Film Festival, Russian-Canadian director Anastasia Trofimova premiered her latest work, “Russians at War”, a documentary following the lives of Russian soldiers serving at the front. Its inclusion in the program caused a scandal, with Ukrainian politicians criticizing it as pro-Kremlin propaganda — claims dismissed by Trofimova herself.

• Trofimova’s documentary shows the day-to-day life of Russian soldiers, some of their combat missions and some of the destruction they wrought on Ukrainian cities. In total, she spent seven months on the front. The director explained her aim as a “desperate search for understanding of [my] native land and [my] people.” 
• Trofimova previously shot films about the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, including for RT Documentary, part of the Russian state propaganda TV company RT. Trofimova claims that she went to the front line in Ukraine without official permission from the Russian defense ministry. She said a man named Ilya, who she met on a train in Dec. 2022, helped her gain access. Once there, Trofimova earned the approval of the brigade commander whose soldiers she was filming.
• In the film, many Russian soldiers openly admit that they don’t understand why they were sent to the front. They also say they don’t understand why they are fighting this war. According to Trofimova, Russian soldiers “are not fighting for some kind of ideal, they are fighting for their friends. For Sasha, for Vanya, for Petya, who never came back.”
• Ukrainian directors, diplomats and public figures regard the film as an insult. They are convinced that the film was made with tacit Russian approval, without which Trofimova would never have reached the front or been able to stay there with cameras, embedded in a Russian battalion for several months. Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, described the film as “propaganda” and called for a “ban on this absurdity.” Ukrainian producer Darya Bassel, who attended the premiere, wrote that “Russians at War” presents a very distorted picture of reality, spreading false narratives. In addition, both noted that Trofimova’s film did not address allegations of war crimes committed by the Russian army and did not talk about the ongoing destruction of Ukrainian cities or the root causes of the conflict.
• Responding to the criticism, Trofimova said her documentary is an “anti-war” film, which shows the “absolutely ordinary people” fighting in the Russian army. She added that it refutes the prevalent idea in the West that all Russian soldiers are war criminals.

Why the world should care

It is difficult to draw clear conclusions about how exactly this film came about. On the one hand, it is hard to believe that Trofimova could have spent seven months at the front filming soldiers without the knowledge of the secret services and approval from Moscow. At the same time, the film’s contents  — featuring soldiers saying they don’t know what they are fighting for alongside drunkenness and disorder on the front lines — would never have received backing or sign-off from the defense ministry. It seems too subtle to be purely a propaganda project. Regardless of how the film was made or turned out, it is hard to criticize the idea of trying to find out more about who Russian soldiers actually are, not the kind of propaganda and caricatures — positive and negative — advanced by both sides.