The Toronto International Film Festival said Wednesday that it won’t pull “Russians At War,” a documentary about Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, from its schedule, despite protests from Ukrainian officials and the Ukrainian-Canadian community.
“This documentary is an official Canada-France co-production with funding from several Canadian agencies, at both the federal and provincial level,” TIFF said in a statement.
“Our understanding is that it was made without the knowledge or participation of any Russian government agencies. In our view, in no way should this film be considered Russian propaganda.”
The statement also expressed sympathy for the Ukrainian people, and the suffering resulting from Russia’s invasion.
“As we engage with the art made at this politically charged time, we are guided by the democratic values of freedom of conscience, opinion, expression and peaceful assembly as protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for all Canadians including Canadian artists,” the statement read.
In response to TIFF’s statement, Yulia Kovaliv, Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, expressed her disappointment in a post on X.
“Russian propaganda is not the same as freedom of speech, Russian war crimes have been committed and well documented by international investigators, the whole world seen them,” she wrote. “By showing this film you are whitewashing killer and rapers.”
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), a non-profit umbrella organization that represents Canada’s Ukrainian community, also weighed in on X. It called TIFF’s statement “insulting and appalling.”
“Whitewashing Russian propaganda at a time when Russia is committing war crimes against Ukrainians,” the UCC wrote.
The TIFF statement arrived a day after TVO withdrew its support for TIFF, following protests from the Ukrainian community.
“TVO’s Board of Directors has decided to respect the feedback we have received, and TVO will no longer be supporting or airing ‘Russians at War,’” a press release posted to the public broadcaster’s website on Tuesday stated.
“TVO will be reviewing the process by which this project was funded and our brand leveraged.”
Meanwhile, the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), which represents the collective voice of Canada’s independent documentary creators, expressed alarm at TVO’s “unilateral decision” to withdraw support for “Russians at War.”
“This project, a Canadian-French co-production, was developed through a multi-year collaborative effort involving the filmmakers and TVO’s Documentary team,” read a statement released on Wednesday. “TVO’s team has traditionally operated with editorial independence, fostering essential collaboration with independent filmmakers through established journalistic processes of review and discussion.” The statement went on: “TVO’s decision risks setting a dangerous precedent and must be immediately reversed.”
The documentary, which follows Russian soldiers on the front lines of the war in Ukraine, also sparked a protest on Tuesday at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto.
Speaking from the Liberals’ caucus retreat, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters Tuesday that both diplomats and the Ukrainian-Canadian community have expressed “grave concerns” about the film “Russians at War” — concerns which she shares.
“We as a country have to be very, very clear that there can be no moral equivalency in our understanding of this conflict,” she said. “It’s not right for Canadian public money to be supporting the screening and production of a film like this.”
A synopsis of the film on TIFF’s website described it as a first-person documentary chronicling the lives of Russian soldiers as they grow increasingly disillusioned by the war. “They all come to realize that everything they heard about the war in Russian media is false,” it read. “They begin to doubt their purpose — and fight only to survive.”
The documentary, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week and is set to make its North American debut at TIFF on Friday, was produced in association with Ontario’s TVO and British Columbia’s Knowledge Network. It also received $340,000 in funding from the not-for-profit Canada Media Fund.
Ukraine’s consul general in Toronto, Oleh Nikolenko, previously urged TIFF to pull the documentary from its schedule, accusing the film of absolving Russian soldiers of responsibility in the ongoing invasion.
“It is irresponsible to allow the Toronto International Film Festival, one of the most reputable world film stages, to be used to whitewash the responsibility of Russian soldiers committing war crimes in Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion,” Nikolenko wrote in a letter to TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey dated Sep. 5.
He added that representatives from the Consulate General of Ukraine in Toronto, the Embassy of Ukraine in Ottawa and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress raised concerns with TIFF management, but did not find their response satisfactory.
TIFF did not immediately respond to the Star’s requests for comment.
In response to the backlash, the film’s Russian-Canadian director, Anastasia Trofimova, asserted in a written statement that the film is not propaganda, and that it was filmed without the permission of the Russian government.
“I want to be clear that this Canada-France co-production is an antiwar film made at great risk to all involved, myself especially,” she said.
“I unequivocally believe that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unjustified, illegal and acknowledge the validity of the International Criminal Court investigation of war crimes in Ukraine.”
In producing the film, Trofimova followed a Russian unit through parts of Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. Nikolenko said he believed the documentary wasn’t filmed legally, as Trofimova did not receive permission to cross the border into Russian-occupied Ukraine.
By screening the film, TIFF is making itself complicit, he continued.
TVO initially stood by the film, responding to the controversy last week with a statement that the documentary “is at its core an anti-war film.”
In Venice, Trofimova told reporters that she witnessed no war crimes, characterizing the soldiers she accompanied as: “Absolutely ordinary guys with families, with a sense of humour, with their own understanding of what’s happening in this war.”
Outside the Scotiabank Theatre on Tuesday afternoon, dozens of protesters gathered to protest the TIFF’s decision to air the documentary.
For her part, Freeland noted that “This is a war where Russia is breaking international law and committing war crimes.
“There is very clearly good and evil in this war. Ukrainians are fighting for their sovereignty and for democracy around the world.”
With files from The Canadian Press
