Alexander Rodnyansky Returns To Directing With New War Doc ‘Notes Of A True Criminal’; AR Content Chief Outlines Current Productions & Teases New Slate

[ad_1] EXCLUSIVE: Alexander Rodnyansky is a self-confessed “man of many lives” however now, three years after being pressured to flee his house in Moscow for being a vocal critic towards the conflict in Ukraine, the Kyiv-born producer is returning to his documentary roots. The Leviathan and Loveless producer and former founding father of Ukraine’s first indie TV community 1+1, has practically wrapped filming a brand new documentary, Notes of a True Felony, which he produced and directed.

“It’s referred to as that as a result of I’m a felony now,” quips Rodnyansky, referring to the eight-and-a-half yr sentencing in absentia he obtained from a Moscow court docket final yr for spreading anti-war sentiments.

Coming from a protracted line of documentarians – his grandfather was a documentary filmmaker, and his nice aunt was pioneering Soviet filmmaker Esfir Shub (The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty)– it’s maybe becoming that the Oscar-nominated producer is returning to the documentary area at a time when international political unrest is at a excessive.

The venture, he says, will mix components of doc motion pictures he shot on the finish of the Chilly Conflict coupled with newer footage from the conflict in Ukraine and WWII footage obtained by his household.

“I used fragments of the films I did on the finish of the Soviet Union instances, as a result of I began out as a director, in addition to fragments of films carried out by my mother and grandfather throughout World Conflict II,” Rodnyansky tells Deadline, including that footage within the documentary accommodates battlefield scenes, prisoner of conflict footage and trials.

“It’s a really private assertion which tells the story by means of one household virtually,” he says. “It begins with the start of the conflict after which goes forwards and backwards. I shot the withdrawal of the Soviet military from Japanese Germany in 1990 and, I say it within the film, however I had a sense that these folks weren't getting back from the conflict however that they had been transferring to the conflict. Yesterday they had been troopers of 1 military and residents of the identical state, and now they’re coming to totally different nations and changing into residents of various states and troopers of various armies.”

Rodnyansky, who expects to have the venture completed subsequent month, says he’s at the moment speaking to main worldwide movie festivals with the hope it's going to get a competition circuit run within the fall.

The venture is one among many on Rodnyansky’s bustling slate. Since 2022, the producer, who lives between Los Angeles and Italy has been steadily constructing a roster of European and worldwide tasks with ties to Hollywood by means of his AR Content material banner.

At current, he’s bought 5 totally different motion pictures at varied levels of manufacturing: Kornél Mundruczó’s Place to Be with Ellen Burstyn and Taika Waititi, which simply wrapped in Australia; Mundruczó’s On the Sea with Amy Adams, which is in post-production; Laszlo Nemes’ father-son drama Orphan, which he produces with Good Chaos, additionally in post-production; Barry Keoghan and Riley Keough starrer Butterfly Jam, the English-language debut from Kantemir Balagov; and Jessica Chastain starrer Desires from director Michel Franco, which launched in Berlin earlier this yr and was purchased by Greenwich Leisure for North America.

“We’re creating the following tasks with all of those administrators, most of that are the in English language save for Lazslo which can be in is Hungarian,” he says.

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Rodnyasky can be coming off the again of Debriefing the President, a restricted collection primarily based on John Nixon’s e-book of the identical identify. Joel Kinnaman stars on the former CIA analyst who wrote the non-fiction e-book about his expertise of being the primary American to establish and interrogate Saddam Hussein following his 2003 seize. The drama is about to play on TNT at first of subsequent yr.

Rodnyansky produced the collection with Leslie Greif, and it was due to the latter’s expertise on non-scripted tasks corresponding to Chasing Mummies and Opening the Tombs of Golden Mummies that led to the venture being produced in Egypt.

“We needed to do it in an Arabic nation, and we checked all of the nations of the area and located that Egypt was good for us, talking on the worth and high quality {of professional} groups,” he stated. “There’s no rebate, however we had been the primary huge U.S. manufacturing there and we had been so welcome there. And due to Leslie, we had been capable of arrange the manufacturing actually rapidly on the market.”

Rodnyansky has made a profession out of capturing movies exterior of the U.S. and when pressed about President Trump’s menace to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made movies, he acknowledged that “it’s going to harm everybody” however he's cautious that the proposal will even occur.

“Even Barbie was shot exterior of the U.S. The place will you discover an American film not shot exterior of the U.S.? We did Place to Be in Australia and this film is about in New York and Chicago and we did it due to the costs. Making motion pictures in America could be very expensive and costly. It’s positively an enormous problem for everybody however I don’t consider it’s going to occur. It’s a really dangerous thought and would positively query the dominance of the American movie trade.”

He continued: “In the intervening time all native industries are flourishing and for those who see what’s occurring, it’s a lot simpler to arrange a film in lots of different locations on the earth. It’s very worldwide this enterprise and I’m speaking to traders across the globe – Indian, Arabic and Europeans and that’s a lot simpler and faster.”

For his subsequent slate of movies, he’s seeking to shoot all of them exterior of the U.S., specifically in Japanese European nations corresponding to Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Lativa and different territories. “It’s so exhausting to shoot within the U.S.,” he says. “For Butterfly Jam, we did the budgets for New Jersey, Toronto and Calgary and we lastly determined to set the manufacturing in Europe as a result of prices are too excessive.”