Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose attempted assassination was captured in the Oscar-winning documentary “Navalny,” has received a sentence for an additional 19 years in prison.
The updated prison term is due to charges of “extremism,” per Russian media (via Deadline). Navalny is currently serving a nine-year term after accusing Russian president Vladimir Putin of corruption. Navalny shared a statement to a Telegram social media account following the sentencing.
“The term will be long, what is called ‘Stalinist,’” he wrote. “The formula for calculating it is simple: what the prosecutor asked for, minus 10-15%. They asked for 20, they give 18 or something like that.”
Navalny added that he anticipates an additional 10-year sentence for a pending charge of terrorism.
The eponymous documentary “Navalny,” directed by Daniel Roher, charted Navalny’s political movement against the Kremlin and the alleged attempt to poison him with nerve agent Novichok. Navalny became ill in August 2020 on a flight from Siberia to Moscow; he was treated in Germany. Navalny investigated his own poisoning alongside journalist Christo Grozev in the documentary. He returned to Russia in January 2021 and was immediately arrested. On March 22, 2022, Navalny was sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security prison after he was convicted of fraud and contempt of the Russian court.
“Navalny” premiered at 2022 Sundance and was acquired by CNN Films, Warner Bros., and HBO Max after winning both the Audience Award in the U.S. Documentary competition and the Festival Favorite Award at Sundance.
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich called the documentary an “edge-of-your-seat” experience, writing in the review, “‘Navalny’ finds subject and filmmaker alike bound together by the shared belief that authoritarian governments are as scared of their people as their people are of them, and the documentary is galvanized by the spectacle of Putin shitting his pants.”
The feature film went on to take home the Oscar for Best Documentary. Director Roher dedicated the award to Navalny and “to all political prisoners around the world.”
In his speech, Roher said, “Alexei, the world has not forgotten your vital message to us all. We cannot, we must not be afraid to oppose dictators and authoritarianism wherever it rears its head.”
