The top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and a group that represents Ukrainians living in Canadian have sharply criticized the showing of the film Russians At War at the Venice Film Festival, calling it Russian propaganda.
Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova presented her documentary in which she embedded with a Russian battalion as it advanced across eastern Ukraine after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy's chief of staff, called it "shameful" that the "propaganda film" was being shown at the festival.
In a social media post on September 6, he asked why "Anastasia Trofimova, as well as some other Russian cultural figures -- a country that kills Ukrainians, our children every day -- can work in the civilized world at all."
Joining Yermak in his criticism, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) said in a statement that the Canadian Media Fund used public money to support a film that justifies Russian aggression. The organization pointed out that the Canadian government had previously expressed concern about "the influence of Russian propaganda."
The UCC statement claimed that Trofimova's previous films had been shown on Russian media outlets that have been targeted by sanctions, including Canadian.
"Why is the Canada Media Fund using taxpayers' money to fund a film -- Russians At War -- made by a director whose previous films were broadcast on Russia Today, a Russian propaganda channel sanctioned by the Canadian government?" the UCC's statement said.
The UCC further stated that Trofimova entered the sovereign territory of Ukraine together with the Russian occupation forces in violation of Ukrainian law.
The organization published a screenshot of a portion of the film's credits showing that it had the support of the public-private Canadian Media Fund, and according to the UCC, the funding amounted to $340,000 Canadian ($250,000). The film is a co-production of France and Canada.
Trofimova has said that she made the film to show the "absolutely ordinary guys" who were fighting for Russia and that her documentary calls into question the notion in the West that all Russian soldiers are war criminals.
She saw no signs of war crimes during her time near the front but "that's what Russian soldiers are associated with at this point, because there were no other stories. This is another story," she said at a news conference in Venice on September 5.
The film follows a team of medics as they collect bodies from the battleground, but it gives no sense of the destruction Moscow's forces have inflicted on Ukraine.
The film is being screened this week at the festival but is not competing for an award.
Darya Bassel, a producer who watched the film at the festival, said the film "may mislead you into believing that it is an anti-war film, one that questions the current regime in Russia."
She added on Facebook that what she saw in the film was a "prime example of pure Russian propaganda.
