Oscar-Nominated Producer Alexander Rodnyansky Sentenced To 8.5 Years In Prison By Russian Court For Stance On Ukraine War

Oscar-nominated producer Alexander Rodnyansky has been sentenced in absentia to eight-and-a-half years in jail by a Russian court on charges of spreading fake news about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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The trial was related to social media posts by Rodnyansky, firstly in March 2022, in which he criticized a Russian missile attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, and in October 10, 2022, about attacks by the Russian army on civilian targets in Kyiv, Dnieper and Zaporozhye.

Rodnyansky, who was born in Kyiv but spent much of his career working in Russia, fled the country shortly after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Commenting on the legal action in a talk at NATPE Budapest over the summer, Rodnyansky said he was expecting an eight- to 10-year jail sentence, but that it was “too late to be scared.”

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He noted that other writers, journalists and filmmakers in his entourage had already received similar sentences, and they were simply a tool of the Russian authorities to scare people into submission.

Prior to the war in Ukraine, Rodnyansky’s productions regularly represented Russia in the Best International Feature Film category at the Academy Awards. He clinched two nominations, for Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan (2014) and Loveless (2017).

The producer’s current slate includes Laszlo Nemes’ long-awaited new picture Orphan , which is post-production, and Amy Adams- and Murray Bartlett-starrer At the Sea , from Kornel Mundruczó. Other recent credits include Israeli director Dani Rosenberg’s Of Dogs and Men .

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