Documentaries don’t get much more timely than this.
CNN Films has released the first trailer for Navalny, director Daniel Roher’s feature doc about Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, and set an April 24 premiere date on CNN. The cable news outlet will air the feature with limited commercial interruption starting at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT. Have a look at the full trailer above and the new poster below.
Navalny, which was this year’s secret screening at the Sundance Film Festival, centers on anti-corruption Russian government opposition leader and former presidential candidate who survived an assassination attempt by poisoning with a lethal nerve agent less than two years ago.
“C’mon, poison?” Navalny says in the trailer. “Seriously?”
In August 2020, social media video emerged of Navalny writhing in pain inside a commercial airplane as alarmed crew and fellow passengers tried to render aid. Roher takes viewers inside what happened behind the alarming global headlines that followed: heated arguments between Navalny’s wife and the initial local Russian hospital team over his care; Navalny’s eventual emergency medical evacuation to Germany; and the remarkable German assertion that Navalny had been poisoned by a Russian government-linked nerve agent called Novichok.
Sundance Review: Daniel Roher Documentary Thriller ‘Navalny’
During his months-long recovery, Navalny makes shocking discoveries about the plot and decides to return home. Despite the risks to his personal safety, he willingly returned to Russia on January 17, 2021, and was arrested moments after landing in Moscow. He remains jailed there.
The film takes on even more relevance amid Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, the bordering country it invaded in February.
“Especially as Americans are looking to understand the broader context for the tragic events happening in Eastern Europe, we are able to offer Navalny to television and streaming audiences,” said Courtney Sexton, SVP for CNN Films.
Sexton and CNN Films’ Amy Entelis executive produced the documentary along with Maria Pevchikh of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. It was produced by Odessa Rae of RaeFilm Studios, Diane Becker and Melanie Miller of Fishbowl Films and Shane Boris of Cottage M.
Navalny also will be available for streaming April 24 on CNN+.
