Kremlin slams Hollywood after opposition leader Navalny wins best documentary feature Oscar

Moscow on Monday slammed the Oscar award for a documentary based on the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Kremlin said that the documentary showed “a certain element of politicisation” by Hollywood.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters he had not seen the film but speculated that there could be a “certain element of politicisation of the subject” of the film. Referring to the award decision, Peskov said: “Hollywood also sometimes politicises its work. Such things happen.” He said that “I can’t talk about any cinematic merits of this film, because I’m not familiar with it.”

The short film Navalny examines the poisoning of the jailed Russian dissident. It won the Academy Award for best feature documentary on Sunday.

The documentary shows the 46-year-old Kremlin critic recovering in Germany from being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok during a trip to Siberia in 2020. The movie also tracks the subsequent probe.

Directed by Canadian Daniel Roher, the movie highlights the political rise of Navalny, who emerged as the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Roher told the audience as he accepted the golden statuette: “There’s one person who couldn’t be with us here tonight — Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, who remains in solitary confinement for what he calls — I want to make sure we get his words exactly right — Vladimir Putin’s unjust war of aggression in Ukraine.”

The 46-year-old Navalny, who has been held for the past two years at a maximum-security prison outside Moscow after an embezzlement conviction, has accused Putin of being behind the poisoning attack. (Agencies)

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