The Canadian organization TVO refuses to show the film “Russians at War” in future, which whitewashes the Russian occupiers.
They said they respected the feedback they received and would no longer support the film.
TVO is an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Education. It was through them that the funds ($340,000) were channeled for the production of the film.
The directors of the Russian propaganda film said they were “shocked by this decision.” The Foreign Ministry also responded: it called for following TVO’s example and not showing the film at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Earlier, a film about the lives of Russians during the war, who “remain human,” was shown at the Venice Film Festival.
Russians at War was directed by Canadian-Russian director Anastasia Trofimova. She says she wanted to show the stories of Russian soldiers that would help to better understand this war.
Trofimova lived at the front line with the occupiers for 7 months and said that they were “absolutely ordinary guys with families, with a sense of humor, with their own understanding of what was happening.” The director justifies the Russians by saying that most of them went to war only for money. At the same time, Trofimova for some reason did not see any signs of their war crimes.
This film may mislead you into thinking that it is an anti-war film that questions the current regime in Russia. However, what I witnessed was a clear example of pure Russian propaganda. The filmmaker begins by expressing her surprise at the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In her film, she always uses the term “invasion”, never “full-scale invasion”. She does not mention that Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. These two events do not seem to exist in the world of this film. The filmmaker also states that her country has not been involved in wars for many years and that she has only read about wars in books, comments Ukrainian producer Daria Bassel.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.