Putin opponent Navalny in the cinema: Munich Dok.Fest opened with a strong premiere

Created: 05/04/2022, 21:30

By: Katja Kraft

Fights for his freedom - and that of the Russian people: Putin opponent Alexei Navalny in the documentary about him.

© Dok.Fest Munich

The Munich Dok.Fest 2022 is open!

The 37th edition of the festival at the Deutsches Theater in Munich started with Daniel Roher's documentary "Navalny" about Putin opponent Alexei Navalny.

You can experience the highest art of documentary film here until May 14th and digitally until May 22nd!

The star of the film is prevented.

Alexei Navalny did not walk the red carpet of the Deutsches Theater in Munich on Monday evening – Alexei Navalny sits, toils, suffers in the Pokrov prison camp.

On March 22, about a month after the start of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, the prison sentence of what is probably the country's best-known opposition figure was extended from two and a half to nine years for alleged fraud.

As reported, Alexei Navalny's lawyers have appealed and are demanding acquittal.

Because her client is not someone who can be slowed down.

He fights for his freedom - and that of the Russian people.

"Navalny": the moving opening film of the 37th Munich Dok.Fest

The documentary "Navalny", which opened the 37th Munich Dok.Fest, tells how unconditionally he does this.

The film accompanies the thoroughly fearless opponent of Putin, Navalny, from the assassination attempt by the Russian secret service to his return to Moscow and his imprisonment.

The hours in which his wife is fighting for Alexei's life in the Russian hospital are particularly moving;

when he is rescued in the Berlin Charité and regains his strength in the Black Forest.

The stay there is the focus.

Together with his family, his team and the Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, Navalny managed to uncover the assassination attempt against him.

"Navalny" is a timely work.

It shows the power of the documentary genre;

and also shows how well Dok.Fest boss Daniel Sponsel is networked in the scene: "Navalny" celebrated its German premiere in Munich.

Daniel Sponsel, director of the Munich Dok.Fest © Dok.Fest Munich

“Our festival focuses on socially relevant and artistically valuable films from all over the world.

We curate them for an audience that is diverse in every sense and want to make them comprehensively accessible,” emphasized Daniel Sponsel in the welcoming address.

And is therefore all the happier to finally be back in the analogue venues after two years.

In the Deutsches Theater, in the City Kinos, in the Rio and the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF) - and in all the other places where encounters are now possible again.

First side by side in an armchair in front of the screen, then in a joint conversation about what we have just seen.

Documentaries that move - because life itself writes the craziest stories.

The Munich Dok.Fest runs until May 14, 2022 in venues throughout Munich.

And digitally here from May 9th to 22nd.