R | 1h 38min | Documentary, Biography, History, Politics | 11 April 2022 (USA)
As “Navalny” opens, 42-year-old lawyer-turned-opposition-leader-turned-office-seeker Alexei Navalny is asked by director Daniel Roher to tell the audience what to do if he should die before this film is released. Without missing a beat, Navalny scoffs and half-laughs, then responds by telling Roher that he can plan on making another movie about him after he dies.
This is coming from a man who only months earlier was poisoned nearly to death just prior to boarding a plane from Tomsk to Moscow. The toxin was a powdered poison called Novichok, which is generally transmitted through clothing and, upon the victim’s death, it dissipates after a few days, leaving no trace. It was the same substance used to poison (but not kill) former Russian double agent Sergei Skripel and his daughter in the UK in 2018….