“It was a fever-dream, a non-stop rollercoaster”: Daniel Roher on making ‘Nalvany’

When Navalny, Daniel Roher’s fly-on-the-wall documentary about the 2020 assassination attempt on Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, was unveiled as the secret movie at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, it won the US documentary audience and festival favourite awards.

But perhaps no-one could have predicted how world events would make the film, now nominated for best documentary at Oscar and Bafta, even more timely. “We understood the film was of critical importance but couldn’t have anticipated just how much the Russian invasion of Ukraine would thrust our film into even greater importance and significance, both for the world and Navalny the man,” says Roher from Sundance where he is presenting the film to a live audience after last year’s virtual premiere.

“What a lot of audiences have said is they see the Navalny story as almost a precursor to what’s unfolding in Ukraine right now. What we see in the film is a scared, paranoid regime run by a crazy KGB thug who solves his political problems using violence and murder. That’s the essence of the Navalny story and, on a much larger, genocidal scale, that’s what’s unfolding in Ukraine.”

Roher — a young Canadian filmmaker whose only previous film was a music documentary about Robbie Robertson and The Band — was invited by Bellingcat investigative journalist Christo Grozev to meet Navalny while he was convalescing in Germany. While Navalny seemed friendly, his chief investigator Maria Pevchikh adopted the role of inscrutable bad cop during filming.

“One of the reasons why Navalny enjoyed meeting me was because I was cut from a very different cloth from anyone he’d ever known,” says Roher. “And we had a very similar sense of humour. So, any suspicion was dispelled fairly quickly and instead we were left with a very warm working relationship.”

Also running through the film is its subject’s canny skill as a campaigning journalist; Navalny’s YouTube channel, with its films about corruption from Putin on down, has some 6 million subscribers. “The power struggle between subject and filmmaker, between politician and documentarian, between a man who is gifted at manipulating and controlling news versus me, is the film’s metanarrative and a component I’m quite proud of,” says Roher. “Remaining objective wasn’t challenging for me. The very first conversation was about final cut and editorial control, and I was clear about it being with us. I said if that was a problem, he could find someone else to make the movie. I think Navalny respected my chutzpah.”

If watching the film is a tense bumper ride, making it was almost the same. “It was a fever dream, a non-stop rollercoaster,” says Roher. “We were understaffed, didn’t have a full crew, in a lot of ways we were shooting from the hip and working 20-hour days. Everyone had multiple jobs, it was an all-for-one, one-for-all sensibility to get the film shot in three months. I have to give credit to my team who helped craft this film and without whom this wouldn’t have been possible.”

As the film follows Navalny and Grozev’s investigations into the assassination attempt and its aftermath, there are moments that leave both the protagonists and audience aghast: how Grozev discovers the identities of the Russian agents involved in the poisoning; Navalny’s decision to return to Russia rather than remain another politician in exile; and the telephone call in which one of the agents confesses on tape.

“There was a new miracle happening every single day,” says Roher. “The prank phone call was a miracle. Another was the Kremlin deciding to put Navalny’s plane in a holding pattern and shutting down the airspace around Moscow while they decide what to do with him. You couldn’t make it up.”

Most wanted

Roher says he wasn’t scared while making the film. “It’s scarier now,” he admits. “Christo Grozev has been added to Russia’s most wanted list and it’s clear the Kremlin wants to murder him. And Navalny is in prison. Navalny going back was an extraordinary act of courage that is beyond the understanding of someone like me.

“It’s devastating to know how he’s being treated now. It’s important to remember that Navalny is in solitary confinement because of anti-war activism. He’s the number one anti-war activist in Russia. He has no regard for his own survival — his only concern is ending this war and relegating this brutal regime to the dustbin of history where it belongs.”

Produced by Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris, Navalny was picked up by CNN Films quite early in the post-production process, although getting distribution proved difficult. “We were looking for the right partners and we found them in CNN Films,” says Roher. “They were brave. Every distributor was terrified of the film. Every streamer is owned by a giant corporate conglomerate and if you’re a giant corporate conglomerate that wants to do business in Russia, you wouldn’t touch this film.

“Things changed after the war in Ukraine started and it became taboo to do business with Russia,” he continues. “Before it was, ‘We love the film, but we can’t touch it.’ People think the Russians will hack them and make their lives difficult; that’s how Russian intimidation works. In the US there are fewer and fewer places you can go to make a hard-hitting, investigative, scary political film like this. That’s what’s happened with the corporatisation of mass media, and it’s problematic.”

The past year has seen Roher’s life take unexpected turns. He met his wife through the film and his currency as a filmmaker has soared. But what gives him most satisfaction is the reaction of audiences, particularly those from Russia. “The most meaningful part of taking this film around the world is the dozens and dozens of young Russians who have newly fled their country and are reconstituting their lives elsewhere, who watch this film and feel a glimmer of hope,” says Roher. “Any documentary filmmaker can only dream of making a film of such importance and global necessity. I could never have dreamed I would have had a professional or personal experience akin to this.”

But those experiences have come at a price. “It’s never far from my thoughts that all this success is predicated on Navalny being locked up in a gulag, and so the experience is bitter­sweet,” Roher admits.

“It’s very sad for me that Navalny never got to see the film or participate in a Q&A or experience a six-minute standing ovation,” he continues. “But we’re doing this for him, and my ambition is the attention this film brings will help keep him safe and one day I’ll be able to go to Moscow and show him the movie.”

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