Russian-Canadian filmmaker battles attempts to suppress controversial film as Ukraine launches probe

Anastasia Trofimova, director of Russians at War, under investigation after announcement made by Ukraine’s head of the parliamentary committee on freedom of speech

In the latest wrinkle in the journey of the highly controversial documentary Russians at War, the Security Service of Ukraine has reportedly opened a criminal investigation into Anastasia Trofimova, the film’s Russian-Canadian director.

“It’s troubling for me as a Canadian documentary filmmaker that there is an attempt to suppress my film through baseless and defamatory calls for investigations from both Ukraine and Canadian politicians and organizations,” Trofimova told the National Post on Thursday. “Not to mention the attempts to censor the selections of international film festivals.”

She added: “To those who oppose my film’s existence, they should watch it and understand the facts of its production. The vast majority of those who have seen Russians at War and have become familiar with how we made it agree that it is an anti-war film produced totally independent of any state authority. These attempts to censor and prosecute Russians at War are basically a disinformation campaign from those who want to dictate one narrative at the expense of other perspectives and stories.”

Yurchyshyn reportedly said he started the investigation because “it is Ukraine that should be the first to initiate Trofimova’s case.” He added that he would aim for “a tougher punishment for violating the Ukrainian law” — the law prohibits “material that justifies or recognizes legitimate Russian aggression against Ukraine” — than merely suspending Canadian taxpayer money to finance her movies.

The film has been met with a firestorm of criticism, condemned by politicians and pulled from festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival.

Russians at War offers a view of the conflict in Ukraine through the eyes of the Russian soldiers on the ground. According to the festival program guide, “they all come to realize that everything they heard about the war in Russian media is false. They begin to doubt their purpose — and fight only to survive.”

The film is a Canada-France co-production that received $340,000 in funding from the Canada Media Fund in 2022 through Ontario’s public broadcaster, TVO. The station announced in the wake of backlash against the film during TIFF that it would not be airing the documentary as planned.

“However,” he added, “that doesn’t mean that broadcasters or social media platforms have to amplify it and extend its audience for commercial reasons, beyond that which it would achieve on its own merits.”

In an earlier meeting, Alexandra Chyczij, president of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress, suggested that an investigation into Trofimova by the RCMP was warranted.

A protester holds up a sign outside the TIFF Lightbox before a screening of the documentary Russians at War in Toronto, Sept. 17, 2024.
A protester holds up a sign outside the TIFF Lightbox before a screening of the documentary Russians at War in Toronto, Sept. 17, 2024.Photo by Chris Young /THE CANADIAN PRESS

TIFF had planned to screen Russians at War as part of its 2024 festival lineup. But it drew protests by Ukrainian officials, the Ukrainian-Canadian community, and even Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent.

She went on: “There is very clearly good and evil in this war. Ukrainians are fighting for their sovereignty and for democracy around the world … there can be no moral equivalency in our understanding of this conflict.”

“The film is there to create discussion and debates,” Vincent Georgie, the Windsor festival’s executive director and chief programmer, told CBC in September. “I think what’s quite important in all of this is it’s a film that’s been very, very, very little seen by people, and that’s a really important piece.”

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