“If you are killed, if this happens, what message will you leave for the Russian people?”
This is the first question posed to Alexei Navalny by Canadian director Daniel Roher in the 2022 Oscar-winning documentary Navalny.
“Come on Daniel, no,” Navalny responds, smiling.
“No way. It’s like you’re making a movie about my death case.”
gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas, gas,
Those words have now taken on new intensity with the news that the 47-year-old Russian political activist died in an Arctic Circle prison on Friday.
Russian prison authorities said the Kremlin critic had felt unwell after a walk. Navalny’s team says Russian authorities are intentionally holding his body so they can “cover tracks.”
Despite the clear dangers Navalny faced in Russia, Roher told the BBC that he was still in complete shock when he heard the news of his friend’s death.
“In this moment that we are occupying, this cloud of sadness and pain that hits me, it is shocking to me,” Roher told the BBC.
“I was shocked when I heard the news, even though anyone who sees the film shouldn’t be surprised, it shouldn’t be a surprise.”
Roher described how his friendship with Navalny developed during the film project.
“I think our mutual respect was based on a shared sense of humor: he is a very funny man, he likes to laugh. Within 10 seconds of meeting us he was already making fun of me and making jokes at my expense, which is my language of the love, so I was giving it back,” Mr. Roher said.
The film follows Navalny as he and his team unravel a plot to poison him with the deadly Novichok nerve agent.
In August 2020, he collapsed during a flight over Siberia and was rushed to Omsk hospital, an emergency landing that saved his life. Russian officials eventually allowed him to be flown to Berlin for treatment.
The German government revealed that tests conducted by the military found “unequivocal evidence of a chemical nerve warfare agent from the Novichok group.”
The Kremlin denied any involvement and rejected the Novichok discovery. Many were skeptical, including Navalny himself, who embarked on his own investigation with a team of journalists.
