Arguably one of the most riveting works of investigative cinema in recent years, Navalny takes us inside the research process like no other. We are familiar with the headlines: In August 2020, Russian anti-corruption campaigner and former presidential candidate, Alexei A. Navalny, was poisoned with a military grade nerve agent while on a trip to Siberia and narrowly escaped with his life.
Daniel Roher, a young documentary filmmaker from Toronto, seized upon an unexpected opportunity to observe Navalny, his family, and members of his team as they researched who made the attempt on his life and why upon his hospital release in Berlin as Navalny undertook an investigation into his own poisoning. With two stellar journalists by his side, Christo Grozev, formal title, of Bellingcat and Maria Pevchikh, chief investigator of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, the small crew captured the shocking truth on film, along with a breach at the highest levels of the Russian security services.
Roher and his team had to keep this film project top secret while in production. Extraordinary measures were taken to keep the film and filmmakers safe, from painstaking digital security – not even a single email was sent for over a year – to encrypted hard drives and encrypted messaging services, and even a secret world premiere screening at Sundance which was kept under wraps until the very last minute. This panel will explore both the on-screen and behind the scenes process of achieving an incredible feat of investigative cinema, with the filmmaker and a lead journalist in conversation.