Canadian Film Festival canceled screenings of “Russians for War”

The Canadian TIFF Film Festival has canceled all screenings of the film “Russians at War”, which was shot by the Russian-Canadian documentary filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova.

According to the organizers, they became aware of “serious threats to the work of the festival and public safety.” At the same time, they noted that they are not withdrawing from their statement made the day before, September 11. It said that Trofimova’s film deserves a place at the festival because “it cannot be considered Russian propaganda in any case.” Also, the organizers noted that they defend the right of artists to “fair political comments” and oppose censorship.

The organizers of the Canadian festival hope to show the film “when it is safe.”

“It’s a pity that the festival did not have the courage to directly admit its deep mistake in its arguments,” Yulia Kovaliv, Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, commented on the decision to cancel the show. Earlier, the Consul General of Ukraine in Toronto Andriy Nikolenko and several deputies of the Verkhovna Rada appealed to the Canadian authorities to prevent the showing of “Russians for War”.

Trofymova, a former employee of the Russian state TV channel Russia Today, spent seven months in the combat zone in the Donbass – in territories under the control of Russian troops. According to her, she did not coordinate the filming with the Ministry of Defense of Russia and wanted to show the Russian military as “ordinary people”. The film does not mention the aggression and crimes of Russian soldiers.

For the first time, “Russians at War” was shown at an out-of-competition screening at the Venice Film Festival on September 7. The screening of the film in Venice and the subsequent interview with Trofimov’s publication “People of Baikal” caused a heated controversy. Ukrainian and Russian bloggers opposing the war called him propagandist and whitewashing the Russian military.