Roskomnadzor blocked Yakutia’s highest-grossing film “Aita”

Roskomnadzor has blocked Yakutia’s highest-grossing film “Aita” by the well-known Yakutian director Stepan Burnashev on the territory of Russia. The picture has been removed from Russian streaming platforms, Vedomosti reports.

According to the publication, Roskomnadzor saw in the film “Aita” propaganda of nationalism against Russians. “The picture shows the inequality of people based on nationality: the positive features of heroes of one nationality are contrasted with the negative features of heroes of another nationality. Broadcasting of such information by audiovisual services is unacceptable,” explained the representative of the supervisory authority.

According to the plot of the picture, a schoolgirl named Aita commits suicide, leaving a note in her pocket with the inscription “Afonya, I hate you!”. Afonya is the name of a Russian policeman who, the day before, drove a schoolgirl home after a disco with her classmates.

The girl dies in the hospital, after which it turns out that she was pregnant. Aita’s father and the residents of the village decide that the policeman raped her, and they want to take revenge on him. However, it turns out that Afonya from the note is a Yakut schoolboy from a neighboring village. At the end of the film, the policeman forgives the father of the deceased and says that he wants to start “living differently”.

The film’s director, Stepan Burnashev, explained after the announcement of the blocking that the film, on the contrary, is about the fact that “the division into “ones” and “others” can lead to tragedy”, and the mission of the film is to bring people together. He said that he does not understand the reasons for the blocking.

The Ministry of Culture has not yet seized the rental certificate from “Aita”. The film was presented in February 2022, it collected 26.4 million rubles at the box office, was awarded two awards of the author’s film festival “Winter” and became the highest-grossing Yakut film.

The digital release took place in May of this year, the film was announced by the streaming platforms Kinopoysk, Okko, Wink, and Premier. The tape is currently unavailable on these platforms.