Following the death of Russian dissident Alexi Navalny, the filmmaking team behind the Oscar winning documentary about his life are speaking out to honor his legacy.
Navalny, the leader of Russia’s opposition party and a major critic of Vladimir Putin, died Friday of unknown causes at age 47, at an arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence. He was convicted in 2021 on politically motivated charges.
The documentary about his life, “Navalny,” won the Academy Award for feature Documentary in 2023, and the filmmakers behind it urged that people who support Navalny’s cause carry on his fight.
“We are all overcome with emotions today. Pain, sadness, and most of all anger. Alexei was a light who, along with his family, made the greatest of sacrifices to fight against Putin and his vile regime,” the group said in statetment.
“Alexei built his organization and his movement to survive even if he did not. The fight against corruption, against authoritarianism, and against the war in Ukraine continues. The fight for democracy must go on. The most important thing we learned from Alexei lived in his spirit, the way he retained his humanity even in the worst of circumstances. We must continue with that spirit,” the statement continued.
“As the tides of nationalism and authoritarianism continue to roll into our own countries around the world, we must all stand up for our democratic values. We can’t let anti-democratic factions come to power and we can’t allow the silencing of the strong democratic movement that continues in Russia. If Alexei were here he would say raise a shot of vodka for me and get back to work, democracy is fragile but worth fighting for,” the statement concluded.
Also on Friday, Daniel Roher, director of “Navalny,” appeared on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show, where he shared a similar message.
“All over the world, there are contexts where the rise of authoritarianism is sweeping through all kinds of countries. And I think we have to realize that democracy is fragile. And, certainly, here, in this country, where there are political factions who seem to embrace authoritarianism, we need to participate and be active citizens and heed the call that Navalny delivers at the end of the movie: Don’t be inactive,” he said.
The cause of Navalny’s death is still unknown. But he survived an assassination attempt in 2020, when he was poisoned by FSB agents who were almost certainly acting on Putin’s orders.