<\/p>\n
Anastasia Trofimova risked her life to make \u201cRussians at War\u201d \u2014 and then spent the next year fighting to have the film shown.<\/p>\n
Now, after months of cancellations, protests and threats, the controversial documentary will bypass traditional channels and release directly to audiences on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The film, which follows Russian soldiers on the front lines of the war in Ukraine, drew a standing ovation at its Venice world premiere in 2024 but quickly became a lightning rod.<\/p>\n
Its North American debut at TIFF last year was met with demonstrations from pro-Ukraine groups who called it Russian propaganda. Its screenings had to be rescheduled due to “significant threats to festival operations and public safety.”<\/p>\n
The blowback continued throughout the year, with festivals including Athens and Zurich withdrawing the film due to mounting protests and security concerns.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, TVO scrapped plans to air the documentary after the backlash, leaving it without a distributor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was getting death threats and all sorts of abuse,\u201d says Trofimova of the backlash.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was shocking. You go to the war against all odds, you bring back a story, you go deeper than other people because you’re that much more obsessed about it, and you are getting attacked by people who have not been even close to the war, but they’re telling you what it’s like.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Russian-Canadian director points out that many of the film\u2019s detractors said they hadn\u2019t seen the film and didn\u2019t intend to.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re refusing to see the film, but have very strong opinions on it. So that’s been a bit surprising,\u201d she says on a video call.<\/p>\n
In \u201cRussians at War,\u201d Trofimova embeds herself with Russian troops on the front lines of the conflict in Ukraine, capturing their personal experiences and perspectives. While some have praised it for its unfiltered portrayal of soldiers’ realities, others have criticized it for lacking historical and political context about the invasion, raising concerns that it might whitewash the actions of the Russian military.<\/p>\n
The film’s producer Cornelia Principe says the direct-to-audience release is \u201cpartly by design, partly by necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was important for us to get it out there so people can see it, because part of the controversy is coming from places where people haven’t seen the film,\u201d explains the Oscar-nominated producer behind 2022\u2019s \u201cTo Kill a Tiger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Principe says \u201cRussians at War\u201d is still being shopped to European broadcasters and will air on British Columbia\u2019s Knowledge Network this fall as part of a series of films about the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Lawyers representing the film threatened TVO with legal action last year for pulling the film, but Principe says both parties have since reached \u201ca mutually satisfactory settlement of our dispute and have agreed not to comment further.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says her production company, Raja Pictures, has reclaimed the film\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n
The film is available to rent worldwide at russiansatwar.com, except in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, where producers plan to offer it for free at a later date.<\/p>\n
Principe says they took inspiration from the Oscar-winning documentary \u201cNo Other Land,\u201d about the Israel-Palestine conflict, and \u201cUnion,\u201d which follows Amazon workers\u2019 fight to unionize \u2014 both titles faced distribution hurdles and ultimately went the direct-to-audience route.<\/p>\n
Trofimova says the intense backlash to \u201cRussians at War\u201d revealed just how vulnerable films can be to organized attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was shocking how easy it is to attack a film. If you are an interest group, if you’re a state, if you\u2019re a corporation, it’s not that hard to get screenings cancelled or to muddy the waters around what it\u2019s about,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we make complex films and get them out there, despite the fact that they will most likely be attacked by some sort of interest group?\u201d<\/p>\n
Principe worries about the chilling effect such pressure could have on creative freedom.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we leading to situations where filmmakers will self-censor, where broadcasters will self-censor, where festivals will self-censor and not take on difficult things?\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Principe says she and Trofimova \u201clistened to what people were saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to criticism that \u201cRussians at War\u201d lacked sufficient context on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they added an introductory card to the direct-to-audience version noting that the invasion is \u201cthe deadliest conflict on European soil since WWII\u201d and that war crimes investigations by the International Criminal Court are underway.<\/p>\n
As for those still reluctant to watch the film, Trofimova says: \u201cWatch it when you\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not a film where it’s like \u2018gotcha.\u2019 It’s not a film where I aimed to dehumanize someone. It’s a document of history and this war is scary. And this war, it is a tragedy and it’s still continuing. And when you watch it, just know that it’s continuing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope, on the human part, we can see each other as people, and I hope that once you see what war looks like, anyone who has any illusions will understand a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 12, 2025.<\/p>\n
Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Anastasia Trofimova risked her life to make \u201cRussians at War\u201d \u2014 and then spent the next year fighting to have the film shown. Now, after months of cancellations, protests and threats, the controversial documentary will bypass traditional channels and release directly to audiences on Tuesday. The film, which follows Russian soldiers on the front lines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1956285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[343335,343338,343336,304830,21799,343340,343334,343339,65963,343337],"class_list":["post-1956284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-anastasia-trofimova","tag-controversial-documentary","tag-cornelia-principe","tag-death-threats","tag-film","tag-russian-propaganda","tag-russians-at-war","tag-trofimova","tag-ukraine","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Russians-at-War-team-on-shocking-backlash-to-film-and.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1956285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}