Canadian-Russian director Anastasia Trofimova’s documentary Russians at War has faced criticism for what many perceive as an attempt to whitewash Russian soldiers involved in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

The documentary has been criticized for lacking a concrete counter-narrative to Russian propaganda, failing to address documented Russian war crimes, and does not offer a definitive critique of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime

  • Optional
    5•6 days ago

    Ultimately, it’s hard to be generous to a film that doesn’t feel empathy at all to the matters being covered. Because in its conception, “Russians at War” is incredibly ill-advised. By being so consciously murky in its actual intent, and obscuring the most critical aspect of the narrative — the Ukrainian perspective on the war — all the possible ways you could forgive this film evaporate. As a result, the way Trofimova inserts herself in the film feels manipulative at best, and evil at worst. By blurring the boundaries between the capturing of reality at the front and constructing a narrative at this very same site of conflict, the film becomes an extension of the war apparatus it pretends to examine. As such, it’s an extremely upsetting and dangerous film, especially when it’s presented in the context of film festivals as a way to engage with “the other side” of the story of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    From the “we asked 7 people who saw the film what they thought” article linked in the OP article