While Ukraine is drowning in blood, a film justifying the Russian occupiers was shown at the Venice Film Festival

The 81st Venice Film Festival hosted the premiere of a Russian documentary called Russians at War. While peaceful cities in Ukraine are regularly hit by rocket attacks from the Russian Federation, propaganda filmmakers are trying to justify war crimes by showing the world the alleged "routine" of their soldiers at the front.

According to the Russian media, the film "Russians at War" directed by Anastasia Trofimova was created on the basis of material filmed during 7 months of staying with a battalion of the Russian Armed Forces in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. According to the Kremlin's mouthpieces, the film is "absolutely anti-war," and the Russian military appear as "ordinary people."

"They are disappointed, they do not understand what they are fighting for, but they still go on assaults and talk about their patriotism," the documentary's description says. "The battalion Trofimova joined was on the defensive in the Krasnolimansky direction in the winter and spring of 2023. In the summer of the same year, it was transferred to Bakhmut and sent to assault."

Interestingly, in one of her interviews, Trofimova claims to have received "positive" reactions to the film from both Russians and Ukrainians. However, the filmmaker admits that she has never watched the Oscar-winning Ukrainian film "20 Days in Mariupol" because she "didn't have time for it."

The Russian filmmaker is currently living outside her homeland, "waiting for the authorities to respond." I wanted to make this film as a desperate search for understanding of my home country and my people," she says, adding that she still does not understand the cause of the war. "I still have a lot of questions about how it all happened. This is clearly a failure of diplomacy. Any war is a failure of diplomacy. But I can say that small people usually do not solve anything," Trofimova says.

According to Putinists, the international film community is very interested in the director's work. After Venice, the Russian team will present their film in Toronto. The author herself calls Russians at War not a historical study of the causes of the war, but "a real testimony of a previously invisible side," i.e., Russian soldiers.

On the red carpet, the film's crew appeared in ordinary clothes. Users got the impression that the filmmakers were passing by the festival and just happened to be in front of the cameras.

Instead, the Ukrainians who are presenting the documentary Songs of a Slowly Burning Land this year held a powerful action in front of the photographers and the audience. They wore black shirts with red embroidery that resembled blood. The distance from Venice to the places where Russians are holding Ukrainians captive was written on the shirts. 

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