The Kremlin said on Monday that the award of an Oscar to a documentary about jailed Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny showed ‘a certain element of politicisation’ by Hollywood.
‘Navalny’, which won the Academy Award for best feature documentary on Sunday, shows the fierce Kremlin critic recovering in Germany from being poisoned with a nerve agent in Siberia in 2020, and working with the investigative news outlet Bellingcat to unmask those responsible.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov speaking on Monday, March 13 said he had not watched the film, but that nevertheless, ‘I dare to assume that there is of course a certain element of politicisation of the topic’.
He said that ‘Hollywood is no stranger to politics, it is politicized but I can’t talk about any cinematic merits of this film, because I’m not familiar with it.’
In the shocking documentary, Navalny pinned responsibility for the poisoning episode on a team of agents from the FSB state security service although Russia denied attempting to kill him.
‘There’s one person who couldn’t be with us here tonight — Aleksei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, who remains in solitary confinement for what he calls — I want to make sure we get his words exactly right — Vladimir Putin‘s unjust war of aggression in Ukraine,’ Canadian-born director Daniel Roher said while accepting the award along with Navalny’s wife, son, and daughter.
Navalny has long been a thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin, who avoids mentioning his name in public.
He is now serving combined sentences of 11-1/2 years in a high-security penal colony for fraud and contempt of court on charges that he says were trumped up to silence him.
Watch the victory speech after the award was announced.
