“Navalny,” a film investigating the poisoning of jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, won the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday.
Canadian director Daniel Rohr’s film looks at the political rise of Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foremost rival, his poisoning with nerve agent Novichok on a trip to Siberia in 2020, and the subsequent investigation.
“There’s one person who couldn’t be here with us tonight – Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition who says he lives in solitary confinement – I want to make sure we get his point across – Vladimir Putin in Ukraine “Unjust War of Aggression,” Rohr told the audience while accepting the gold statuette.
Navalny, 46, who has spent the past two years in a maximum-security prison outside Moscow following an embezzlement conviction, has accused Putin of being behind the poisoning attack.
Yulia Navalnaya said, “My husband is in jail just for speaking the truth. My husband is in jail just for protecting democracy.”
The film, which will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2022, won a BAFTA last month.
It bested “All That Breathes”, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”, “Fire of Love” and “A House Made of Splinters”.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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