Ukrainians in Australia want to scrub ‘Russians at War’ screening at Sydney film festival

The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organizations (AFUO) is condemning the Antenna Documentary Film Festival’s selection of a propaganda film “Russians at War” to be screened in Sydney, saying it humanizes, normalizes, and whitewashes Moscow’s naked atrocities in Ukraine.

“The festival has chosen to provide a platform for narratives which feed Russian propaganda,” said Kateryna Argyrou, Co-Chair of the AFUO and a UWC Board of Directors member. “The trailer alone sets up the premise – that the ‘truth’ will be revealed through the human stories of Russian soldiers. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth,” 

Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine is a brutal occupational war of attrition bent on genocide. 

Invading Kremlin forces are systematically destroying Ukrainian cities, schools, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure. The Ukrainian authorities are currently investigating nearly 140,000 Russian war crimes, which include executions, torture, sexual violence, and the forced deportation of children.

“And yet, this film seeks to humanize soldiers who are members of the very army committing these crimes. It portrays them as weary, playful, dancing, laughing, even romancing their girlfriends,” the AFUO statement reads.

What the film fails to show is that these soldiers are not innocent victims of circumstance. 

They are soldiers who signed contracts and will receive salaries three times higher than the average Russian of working age. Joining the army was their conscious decision, the AFUO says.

“The movie also fails to acknowledge that Russia invaded a sovereign nation in violation of international law. It does not mention war crimes. It does not criticize the Putin regime,” the statement said.

Bias permeates the film and serves the interests of the Russian state. Evidence of this is the employment history of director Anastasia Trofimova, who previously worked for the state propaganda channel Russia Today – rebranded as RT.

By comparison, U.S. broadcaster CNN made a profit of $1.8 billion in 2023, whereas, RT received more than $10 billion from Kremlin state coffers in 2022-2024 to spread lies and disinformation to promote pro-Moscow narratives that get repeated by even high-level politicians worldwide. 

“Today. Further, it is highly improbable that she was able to embed herself with a Russian battalion in occupied Ukraine for seven months without approval from the Russian Defense Ministry, so this should be seen for what it is: state-backed propaganda,” Argyrou said.

The AFUO has called on the festival organizers to reconsider their decision and cancel the screening of the film that attempts to portray a false balance of the brutality that Russia has wrought upon Ukraine.

“We call on all government bodies, festival sponsors, and the wider Australian community to stand against this whitewashing of war crimes,” the organization added.

The Antenna Documentary Film Festival, founded in 2011, is held annually in Sydney. The event promotes documentary films, particularly independent and innovative works. This year’s festival is scheduled to take place on Feb. 7-16.

The “Russians at War” film tells the stories of Russian occupiers, interspersed with only brief snippets of real combat footage. 

Trofimova insists that she made an “anti-war” film and wanted to showcase “ordinary people.” 

The film was intended to challenge the notion that all Russian soldiers are criminals, she claims.

Earlier, the Zurich Film Festival canceled public screenings of the film. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress led a campaign against the film’s screening, which resulted in the suspension of screenings in Canada. However, on Sept. 17, the Toronto International Film Festival ignored these calls.

Screenings of the film were successfully canceled in Greece thanks to the efforts of the Ukrainian community in October.