The documentary “Russians at War,” which deals with the invasion of Ukraine from the point of view of Russian soldiers, continues to fuel controversy. The film, which was pulled from the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) due to “threats,” will finally be on screens this Tuesday, September 17 in Canada’s largest city despite new protests.
The festival itself ended Sunday night, but two screenings of the controversial documentary are scheduled for Tuesday at the TIFF Lightbox, a cultural center in the city, TIFF announced. Since its presentation at the Venice Film Festival, the film by a Russian-Canadian director, which gives voice to Russian soldiers, has drawn the ire of Ukrainian cultural and political figures who see it as “Russian propaganda.”
Last week, the festival announced it was canceling what was to be the North American premiere in an “unprecedented decision.” But organizers pledged to screen the film “when it is safe to do so.” “TIFF’s persistence in serving as a platform to share Russian propaganda is unimaginable. Despite all the calls to stop whitewashing Russian killers and rapists, they still want to show this documentary under the festival roof,” Ukrainian ambassador to Canada Yulia Kovaliv said in a message on X. “We call on the TIFF board to intervene,” she added.
Public broadcaster TVO, which helped finance the documentary, announced it was withdrawing its support for the film and said it would not air it. This comes in part after criticism from Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Freeland, who is of Ukrainian origin through her mother, opposed the screening of the film earlier this week, saying that “there can be no moral equivalence in this war.”
A “propaganda film”
Ukraine’s Culture Ministry said Monday that Anastasia Trofimova was now “on the list of persons posing a threat to Ukraine’s national security,” in part because of her documentary. “This propaganda film does not address and does not acknowledge the atrocities committed by Russia during its invasion,” which was released in February 2022, the ministry charged in a statement. The documentary “promotes the idea […] “that Russians are just as much victims as Ukrainians, which is unacceptable,” it continued. She is the 233rd person to be placed on this list, according to the same source.
Minister Mykola Tochytsky, quoted in the statement, said that cases like that of Anastasia Trofimova were part of a “broader information war launched by Russia, which is trying to justify its aggression through culture and the media.”