Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu declared Ukrainian film producer Alexander Rodnyansky a persona non grata and asked for his work to be excluded “from the cultural agenda of the Russian Federation”.
Rodnyansky, one of the most prolific and successful producers then working in Russia, left the country immediately and is now spending his time between Los Angeles and Kyiv.
“I have completely cut my ties with Russia. I don’t work there anymore. I left the country forever immediately after the public statement of the minister of defence Shoigu,” Rodnyansky tells Screen.
Shoigu’s comments were directed at Rodnyansky because he was a Ukrainian-born producer who clearly didn’t support the invasion and whose work was too critical and independent-minded for Kremlin tastes. He may have produced Fedor Bondarchuk’s state-backed war epic Stalingrad (2013), one of the first Russian movies ever to be released on IMAX, but his Oscar-nominated Andrey Zvyagintsev-directed films like Leviathan (2014) and Loveless (2017) exposed aspects of Russian life, such as corruption and cruelty, that showed the country in an unflattering light.
Development slate
While Rodnyansky’s work may have been interrupted by the war, he has plenty of new projects in development through his company, AR Content.
They include projects with three Russian directors with whom Rodnyansky had been working, but who have also left the country: Zvyagintsev as well as Kantemir Balagov, behind 2019 Cannes Un Certain Regard winner Beanpole, and Kira Kovalenko, whose 2021 festival hit Unclenching The Fists was picked up by Mubi.
Rodnyansky, who has a first-look deal with Apple TV+, is developing new projects with Balagov and Kovalenko, who are a couple and who both now live in LA.
Balagov’s new feature Butterfly Jam is being made with Ari Aster and Lars Knusden’s Square Peg as co-producers. An American reworking of what was originally going to be a Russian project called Monica that’s now set in New Jersey, Butterfly Jam is currently being cast and is expected to shoot this year. It’s described as a “gentle and dramatic” film about the relationship between a 14-year-old boy and his father.
Balagov has previously worked closely with French sales outfit Wild Bunch International, but it is yet to be confirmed who will be handling the new project.
“We decided first to cast the movie and then go on the market,” says Rodnyansky. “It is the model I exploit now: I finance the development – casting, script development, everything – and then go shopping.”
Rodnyansky is also developing a new project, Holy Fools, with Kovalenko which is also based in the US. “This is a family story, extraordinarily fresh, provocative, deep and emotional,” he says of the film, which Kovalenko is scripting with Marina Stepnova.
Oscar nominee Zvyagintsev is currently in Paris, working on a new Russian-language project, due to be made this year in Europe. Rodnyansky describes it as a story of contemporary Russia, “very much in line with what he did before”.
Rodnyansky describes Zvyagintsev’s previous films as “investigating and diagnosing…the psychological mood” of Russian society and of exploring the attitudes that led to this bloody war in Ukraine. The new film is very much following this trend.”
Docs, experimental pics and TV series
The AR Content boss is also collaborating with US documentary director Rory Kennedy on a Holocaust-themed documentary, looking at the plight of Jewish refugees seeking asylum in the late 1930s and being turned away by almost every country apart from the Dominican Republic. The project is nearing completion, and is executive produced by Kevin Macdonald.
Rodnyansky is yet to decide whether to work on the doc with a sales agent, selling territory by territory, or to do a deal with a streaming platform so that the film can be released immediately.
The veteran producer confirmed that Godfrey Reggio’s experimental pic Neooonowww, which he produced with Steven Soderbergh, is now completed. The 40-minute film from the director of cult hit Koyaanisqatsi is now set to hit the festival circuit and may also show in museums.
Meanwhile, Rodnyansky is continuing to develop TV series Everybody’s Woman with Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó and his writing partner, Kata Wéber.
Ukrainian projects
While working with leading ex-pat Russian directors, he is also keen to support Ukrainian projects and is partnering with Anonymous Content on a new feature by Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, director of 2014 hit The Tribe. Based on an article by Peter Pomerantsev in The Atlantic, it is the story of a Ukrainian family living in a village under occupation by Russians.
Along with his film work, Rodnyansky is travelling back and forth to Ukraine, “trying to be of help”. His son is an advisor to the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.
At the start of the war, the producer admits he struggled to keep his interest in the film business going.
“It was extremely complicated not just to work but even just to read screenplays or books which is unusual for me because it is a major pleasure of my life to read,” the producer acknowledges. “Now, I’m very grateful to my partners in the US, and Apple TV+, for all their support. They’ve expressed their willingness to see the movies produced by me reflecting what is going on.”
Rodnyansky is also planning a new drama series about Putin and his entourage called All The Kremlin’s Men, which he says will trace the roots of the war and what was happening politically in Russia in the 1990s that led the country to backslide into becoming a totalitarian state again.
And, no, he hasn’t yet decided who will play Putin.
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