poisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Tuesday. Called “Navalny,” it’s a no-holds-barred indictment of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, and insists that Navalny’s close brush with death was the result of a secret state-run operation to assassinate him.“As I became more and more famous guy, I was totally sure that my life became safer and safer because I am kind of famous guy — and it will be problematic for them just to kill me,” Navalny, 45, says in the film. “I was very wrong.” The doc, heading to HBO Max, was added at the last minute to the Sundance slate just as Putin had stationed more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border.
The day the film premiered, Russian authorities added the Kremlin critic, who has been jailed since February 2021 and sentenced to at least 3 ½ years, to a list of “terrorists and extremists.”A spokesman for the US State Department said, “This latest designation represents a new low in Russia’s continuing crackdown on independent civil society.”But it’s just another day in the life of a politician and social media star who has repeatedly dared to challenge authoritarian strongman Putin by advocating for a free press, transparent elections and more local autonomy.Canadian director Daniel Roher began secretly making his documentary in November 2020, three months after the political rising star was dramatically removed from a flight from Siberia to Moscow after falling severely ill onboard.
The plane made an emergency landing, Navalny was rushed to a hospital and allowed no visitors. Although it was apparent he had been poisoned, doctors at the Omsk Emergency Hospital said he was suffering from a “metabolic disorder.” And.
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