Alexander Rodnyansky sentenced to 8.5 years in prison by Moscow court

Two-time Oscar nominee Alexander Rodnyansky (“Leviathan,” “Loveless”) was sentenced Monday in absentia to 8.5 years in prison by a Moscow court, with the producer accusing Russian authorities of trying to “sow more fear” among critics of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

“Dozens of Russia’s best writers and musicians have been condemned before me for this purpose: to silence anti-war voices,” Rodnyansky said in a statement shared with Variety.

The judgment, handed down Monday afternoon by Moscow’s Basmanny District Court, sentences Rodnyansky to 8.5 years in prison for his anti-war remarks and also bans him from posting on the Internet for four years.

The court found him guilty of spreading military “fake news,” as Russian officials call any statement that contradicts the official narrative about the war in Ukraine, and determined that his actions were motivated by “political hatred,” according to the court. Russian news site Mediazona.

In his statement, Rodnyansky insisted that authorities had built a “political case” against him, adding that he had been “convicted for speaking out about the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Bucha.”

“The Moscow court’s decision is aimed at instilling more fear in the Russian film community and preventing them from publicly criticizing either the unjust war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin personally,” he said.

Noting that the Kremlin’s crackdown on opposition to the war has targeted “dozens” of Russian artists – and several thousand ordinary civilians – he added: “The difference in my case is simple: I am not Russian, I am Ukrainian. »

The kyiv-born producer, who lived and worked for nearly three decades in Russia, has been an open critic of the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022. After receiving information that his critics had placed him in line with the target of the Kremlin, Rodnyansky managed to flee the country. In October 2022, the Russian Justice Ministry declared him a “foreign agent”.

After launching a prolific media career in kyiv that saw him make documentaries and found Ukraine’s first independent television channel, Rodnyansky became one of Russia’s most influential producers. His collaborations with filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev earned him Academy Award nominations in the foreign language (now international feature) category for “Leviathan” and “Loveless.”

“Only a few years ago, before the invasion of my native Ukraine by the Russian army, I lived and worked in Moscow,” Rodnyanksy said in his statement. “My films have won awards at Cannes. Twice they were nominated for an Oscar representing Russia, and once a film I produced (“Leviathan”) won a Golden Globe. Times have changed dramatically since then, and today I stand condemned for denouncing this brutal war as a shameless political matter.

“From the first days of the war, when the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation ordered the Minister of Culture to ban all my work in Russia, I knew that my anti-war position would inevitably be punished” , he continued. “That has never stopped me from publicly supporting Ukraine and protesting the war, and of course that won’t stop me now.”

Rodnyansky added that he did not “recognize the authority of the Russian court” or his prison sentence, and said he would “continue to work and tell the truth about the brutality of the Russian invasion at the both in the media and through my films.”