After stirring controversy in with her and seeing her North American premiere postponed in Toronto over apparent security threats, director Anastasia Trofimova on Tuesday said she still doesn’t understand the political reasons for the Russia-Ukraine war. “The reason I went into this war is to understand the people who are fighting. In terms of finding political reasons, I still don’t know,” the Russian-Canadian filmmaker said during a post-screening Q&A as she defended the film being made while Trofimova was embedded with a Russian army battalion in Eastern Ukraine.
She was responding to a filmgoer asking if Trofimova had learned anything from her three years making . “I say, I still don’t understand the reasons behind this war. If you do, and everything is so clear, I mean, I congratulate you.
But I don’t. I don’t really know,” Trofimova told the questioner. Then asked by the same questioner if Russia was the main reason for the central European conflict, Trofimova added: “I think there are a lot of others factors involved, yeah, they’re definitely sending in troops to solve whatever grievances there are.
It’s not right.” When the TIFF questioner thanked Trofimova for her answer, the film’s Oscar-nominated producer, Cornelia Principe, also on stage at TIFF Lightbox, expanded on her director’s answer. “She said sending troops in to invade the country is not a way to solve a problem, right? That’s what she’s saying,” she told the festgoer,.