Overview
- Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Culture and the Ukrainian Embassy in Italy issued a joint statement earlier this month warning that giving a Venice platform to DAU risks signaling ties to Russian state influence.
- Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera posted a public Instagram defense on Wednesday that called the accusations a smear, described DAU as opposed to totalitarianism and characterized director Ilya Khrzhanovsky as a dissident.
- Khrzhanovsky responded on Facebook to deny current Russian-state control, say he renounced Russian citizenship and argue that financier Sergei Adoniev and actor Teodor Currentzis do not make the new film a state instrument despite past links noted by critics.
- DAU was principally filmed in Kharkiv from 2008–2011 with early development support from the Ukrainian State Film Agency, and the project has a history of contested production methods and prior releases that generated safety and ethics questions.
- The dispute leaves DAU scheduled to compete in Venice on September 9 and raises broader questions about how top festivals vet funding, personnel and past production practices when programming works connected to contested states.