The feature-length documentary Navalny, in which director Daniel Roher tells the story of the 2020 assassination attempt on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, will open the Movies That Matter festival (Netherlands) on 8 April. Earlier this year, the doc won the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary and the Festival Favourite Award at Sundance.
The Movies that Matter Festival 2022 will take place from Friday 8 to Saturday 16 April in the Dutch city of The Hague, online and in cities across the country.
The film tells how, on 20 August 2020, Alexei Navalny fell severely ill on a plane coming from Siberia. He was poisoned and could only be rescued within inches of his life. The murder attempt came after years of an ever-increasing showdown between Navalny and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. In Navalny, filmmaker Daniel Roher has access to Navalny’s inner circle while he recuperates in exile in Germany, and subsequently tries to find the perpetrators with the aid of research network Bellingcat.
The Bellingcat investigator manages to identify the kill team that went after Navalny. In a stunning scene, Navalny talks on the telephone to the men who tried to murder him. Equally thriller-like is the plane ride back from Germany to Moscow, where Navalny knows the authorities will await him.
‘Navalny’ celebrates its Dutch premiere at the festival and will screen as part of the Camera Justitia competition, which sheds a light on people who stand up against corruption, inequality and discrimination in their fight for justice.
Margje de Koning, artistic director Movies That Matter Festival, comments: “Navalny paints a picture of a country that is sinking deeper and deeper into darkness. The years of curtailing freedoms and the current war in Ukraine show how dangerous Russia has become under Vladimir Putin. For me, our opening film illustrates crystal clear what can happen when one man takes unbridled power to himself. What happens when such a leader completely stops listening to contradiction and has his own reality. For Movies That Matter, exposing situations in which human rights are at stake is extremely urgent.”
The Movies That Matter festival is an international film festival on human rights, based in the Netherlands. The 14th edition of the festival runs April 8-16, 2022 with national and international premieres and a wide range of in-depth programmes. Throughout the year, Movies that Matter also organises an extensive educational programme for pupils and students with screenings across the Netherlands.
A selection of festival films goes On Tour through 18 cities across the country. Movies That Matter also supports the screening of human rights cinema in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East in countries where press freedom is restricted and where human rights are at stake.
