Russian-Canadian director Anastasia Trofimova has defended her film “Russians at War” as an “attempt to see through the fog of war.”
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The new movie of the Russian-Canadian documentary filmmaker Anastasia Trofimov has sparked a controversy at Venice Film Festival. At the center of the discussions was the “sympathetic” portrayal of Russian soldiers on the front line in the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. Trofimova spent seven months living with Russian troops at the front to shoot the film Russians at warwhich premiered out of competition in Venice. The director, on the other hand, made no secret of her intentions: to dispel stereotypes about Russian soldiers in the West.
“In Russia they are heroes that never die. In the West they are mostly criminals of war, war criminals, war criminals,” Trofimova told the press before the premiere of her film. “For me, the biggest shock was to see how ‘ordinary’. Absolutely normal kids, with families, with a sense of humor, with their own understanding of what’s happening in this war.”
For Russians at war, Trofimova says she worked without the Kremlin’s permission to shoot the documentary. The film tells the story of a worn-out battalion moving through Ukraine, grappling with the bad management of the Russian Armed Forces. Many of the soldiers admit that they fight only for moneyothers say they are motivated by the camaraderieThe film also focuses on a group of doctors Russians collecting the bodies of their war comrades.
The film has been criticized for its lack of knowledge of the fights and for the absence of an idea of the destruction of Ukraine caused by Russian forces, as well as the fact that a Russian soldier denies war crimes charges brought for events in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian journalist Olga Tokaryukov criticized the screening of the film at the Lido, writing: “An excellent example of Russian propaganda at the Venice Film Festival. A documentary by a director who previously made films for RT, which seeks to cover up Russian war crimes in Ukraine and to portray Russian soldiers as ‘poor victims’ of the regime.”
Trofimova said she had not seen any signs of war crimes during her time with Russian forces. “I think in the Western media Russian soldiers are associated with this, because there are no other stories. That’s another story,” he told the press.
United24the platform of charity government-run Ukraine’s war effort, responded to Trofimova’s claims about X by writing: “She obviously overlooked events like the Children’s hospital bombing in Kievwidely condemned as a war crime. The director also failed to address the realities experienced by Ukrainians under Russian occupation in the regions she visited, raising concerns about legality of his presence on site, according to Ukrainian law.”
“Since the beginning of the war, on February 24, 2022, there have been many bridges destroyed between Russia and the West,” Trofimova said. “I would like this film to be not just a bridge, but at least a rope to throw to help us observe ourselves.”
“His observations present a glaring omission: the voices of Ukrainians,” United24 responded. “His film frames the war solely through the lens of Russian-Western relations, with little regard for the lived experiences of those inside Ukraine, suggesting a narrative that completely ignores their suffering“.
The Ukrainian producer too Darya Bassell criticized the film in a long post on Facebookclaiming that Trofimova is ignorant of Russia’s multiple invasions and wars, arguing that her surprise at the invasion of Ukraine is suspicious, and that she is wrongly labeling the invasion as a civil war.
“You will feel pity for the people depicted as dying in the film and for those we see mourn their loved ones. And you should: if you are a normal human being, you should feel pity, sadness and emotion. However, it is also important to remember that these individuals joined the army that invaded an independent country, many of them voluntarilyas we learn from the movie. You should also remember Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol and the civilians who were killed there. Remember the thousands of children who were illegally transported from Ukraine to Russia. As I write these lines and as you are reading them, the missiles are hitting Ukrainian cities. The buttons are being pushed by ordinary Russians. Are their crimes any less significant just because they claim not to know why they are involved in this war?” Bassel asks.
Another documentary, Songs of Slow Burning Earthpremiered at the festival and depicts the devastating effects of the Russian invasion on the lives of Ukrainians. Its director Olha Zhurba also criticized the screening of Russians at war: “I think – he explained – that Russian directors should show the true face of criminals of this war” and that it is too early to portray the aggressors in this conflict as sympathetic.
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