EXCLUSIVE: Tel Aviv-based documentary sales outfit Cinephil has acquired world rights to Notes Of A True Criminal, the first documentary in more than three decades from Oscar-nominated producer and director Alexander Rodnyansky, long-time collaborator of Andrey Zvyagintsev, with whom he produced films including Leviathan and Loveless.
Notes Of A True Criminal, co-directed by Andriy Alferov, receives its world premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival next week.
The film, produced by Rodnyansky for AR Content and Alferov, is a deeply personal affair in which Rodnyansky reflects on the circumstances which led to him being denounced as a “foreign agent” by the Russian government, having previously been one of the most prominent producers working in Russia. Last autumn, he was sentenced in absentia to eight-and-a-half years in prison by a Russian court on the charge of spreading fake news about the Russian army.
Having originally moved to Moscow in 2002, Rodnyansky left Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and now lives in exile, spending time between Los Angeles and Kyiv.
In Notes Of A True Criminal, Rodnyansky looks back at defining moments in Ukraine’s modern history and how they have shaped that of his own life and family. They include the referendum on independence, the mass execution of Jews at Babyn Yar in September 1941, the Chernobyl disaster, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Germany, and the full-scale Russian invasion of February 24, 2022. He uses footage from his own documentaries and those of his family members.
The prolific Rodnyansky is involved in another film in Venice’s official selection, Hungarian director László Nemes’s Golden Lion contender Orphan, sold by Charades and New Europe Film Sales, on which he is a producer.
Orphan will have its North American premiere as a Centrepiece screening at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.
Throughout his career, Rodnyansky has collaborated with many award-winning filmmakers, including Zvyagintsev, Kantemir Balagov, Michel Franco, Kornél Mundruczó, Régis Wargnier, Billy Bob Thornton, the Wachowskis, Tom Tykwer, Robert Rodriguez, and Ari Folman.
AR Content’s upcoming slate includes Balagov’s Butterfly Jam starring Barry Keoghan and Riley Keough, Mundruczó’s Place To Be starring Ellen Burstyn, Taika Waititi and Pamela Anderson, and At The Sea starring Amy Adams and Murray Bartlett.
The company is also working on the series Debriefing The President, about the first American to identify and question Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, which stars Joel Kinnaman.
Cinephil’s slate includes Natchez from director-producer Suzannah Herbert, and Volia Chajkouskaya’s HBO-backed Not Made For Politics, about a group of Belarusian women who are challenging the country’s 30-year dictatorship. Other recent titles handled by the sales outfit include Hollywoodgate, Agent Of Happiness, The Dating Game, The Last Republican and My Armenian Phantoms.