Odessa Rae

Join your host Jimmy Brown as he chats with Oscar award winning producer and documentarian, Odessa Rae. Odessa’s unwavering belief and unique ability to document the story of Alexy Navalny who was and still is Putins main opposition brought the worlds attention to the Oscar award winning documentary, Navalny.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
To me, have you ever considered that the consequences of
your choices have ripple effects? We've all played out the
sliding doors version of our lives. But the past is over,
the only moment is nigh, and the future is winning.
This episode is a great example of how everything that's

(00:23):
ever happened in one's life has been a conditioning for
the present moment and for the future. Join me as
I chat with the Oscar Award winning producer and documentarian
Odess Array. Odessa's unwavering belief and unique ability to document
the story of Alexey Navali, who was and still is

(00:45):
Putin's main opposition, brought the world's attention to the Oscar
Award winning documentary Navali. I'm your host, James Brown. You're
listening to the Unimaginable.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
I grew up very eclectically. My parents were very young
when they met. They were twenty one twenty two. They
met at art school. They'd both been traveling quite a bit.
They're both Canadian, and when they met, they were like,
let's go to India. They were at art school. They

(01:21):
went off to India. They ended up getting pregnant with
me and liked it in India. I think just wanted
to get away from like Canada, you know, the West,
sort of understand a little bit more. They had grown
up a bit international, well not really. My mom just
went to boarding school in Switzerland, so I don't know
how international it is, but at least it's like a

(01:42):
little glance of another world. And they went off to India.
They got pregnant, and I ended up living in India
for the most part until I was eight years old,
other than a little stint in London, which is very
hard on an India budget. Was six years old because
of an uprising in Tamil Nadu in the south, which

(02:06):
is where we lived, between the Tumil Tigers and the Sikhs.
There were a lot of uprisings during that time, so
my first experience of the world was really well because
they were again very young, they were gone a lot,
and we had a young Tamil girl who was actually

(02:27):
only sixteen at the time, named Shanti, who lived with
us most of the week and took care of me.
And my parents would go off and she would just
take me down to stay in her little house on
the hillside with her family nine brothers and sisters. Basically
sleeping on one mud floor and the parents downstairs, you know.

(02:50):
And I have so many weird memories of India, basically
waking up in the middle of the night and if
I was staying at Shanti's house, having to to walk
down the row of mud huts to the end of
it and to go pee, you know, and walk back
by myself on the on the cliff side of this

(03:10):
Indian village called Korea Kanal. It was on the top
of a mountain range in southern India. Yeah, I learned
about the world through her perspective and also a mixture
of my parents and religion too, which came in in
different ways in my life. Like you know, with India,

(03:33):
you learn about Shiva and Ghanesh and you know, they
take you to the little tree to make the puja.
And then later for a few years I lived in
Canada and went to Catholic school because my grandma was Catholic,
you know. And then my parents split up at eight
we left India. My father moved to Beijing. He wanted

(03:53):
to go and finish his studies at the University of Beijing.
And this was nineteen eighty nine and he was studying
at the university of Beijing when Tianaman Square started, and
I remember every day checking the death lists to see
if he had made it out of Beijing, and he
was on one of the last flights evacuating I think

(04:15):
the last one evacuating Canadians too. It was Hong Kong randomly,
and so he ended up in Hong Kong. This was
pre ninety seven, so pre the changeover, and he started
working in finance and he just stayed there and he
still lives in Hong Kong. So he made his life
in Hong Kong. He married a Chinese woman from Thailand.

(04:36):
They had two more kids, and I spent the next
few years going back and forth between Hong Kong and Canada,
where my mom went back to live at her parents' house,
my grandparents, you know, who also became parents to me.
So there was just so much instability. And then my
mother ended up marrying an American And at fourteen or fifteen,

(04:57):
I decided I'm sort of done with the pair parents
moving me around everywhere, and I applied to go and
study in Japan by myself, and I went as part
of a host program, and so I ended up living
in a Buddhist temple hosted by a Buddhist priest, his
wife and their kids, and I lived in this Buddhist temple.

(05:19):
This for me was sort of like the birth of
my individuality, I think, because I had been sort of
pulled back and forth in all these different cultures. I
didn't spend more than two years in one school. I
really struggled. Was always like fitting in. I was a
little redheaded kid with freckles, which is not really like
the cute kid in the class, you know. So I

(05:41):
was teased a lot and sometimes teased really badly and
bullied more in schools in the West than in the
East because I was just weird, you know. I'd come
from like India and Hong Kong and just looked a
little bit like a boy, which is and I did
end up, you know, growing up to be sort of pretty,

(06:04):
I guess. But the parents that would like my grandparents'
friends who would see me later when I was modeling
when I was eighteen, they were like, oh my god,
you used to be such a homely child. I was
just like, well, thank you, thank you for that. So
I went off to Japan when I was sixteen years old,

(06:24):
and I lived in this Buddhist Temple, and I studied
in a local Japanese high school. There were no white
people within one hundred miles of my town, and I
just became Japanese, you know. I wore a little Japanese
sailor gu every day, which is the sailor girls sort
of uniform, and I rode to school on my bicycle.

(06:48):
And I remember about ten months in, I was riding
on my bicycle to school and this Japanese woman in
the town sort of looked at me really weirdly going by,
and I was like, I thought in my head at
this and I'm talking to myself in Japanese, dreaming in Japanese,
and I thought in myself like not even did it?
One thought like what's she looking at? You know? And

(07:09):
then it took a few seconds. I was like, oh,
that's right. I'm like white and five ten with red hair,
you know. So I think because I'd grown up in
adapting to so many different cultures, I just had this
ability to be a sort of a chameleon. And I
fell in love with Japan.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Japan was like the healing and the birth of myself.
After all these places in schools and people and dynamics
and my parents' relationship was very unstable and very unhealthy
and toxic. And I stayed, and I stayed longer than
the program actually, and I went back to At this time,

(07:47):
my mother was living in Seattle. I went back to
Seattle about two months before I was to graduate from
high school. Graduated, went off to University of Toronto and
was going to study international relations when I got scouted
on the street basically to be a model. And I

(08:10):
was studying international relations global politics, and they just said, well,
you can make a little bit of extra cash if
you want to be you know, if you want to
do this modeling thing. I just thought, okay, well why not,
you know, I mean, sounded exciting, and so I started.
And then the bigger agencies from Paris came over at
one point and were like, well, would you like to

(08:31):
come and do fashion shows in Paris? You know? And
I just I thought, well, this could be interesting. I
decided to take a little break from university. I sort
of still felt like I was figuring out myself anyway,
So I took a little break and I went off
to Paris, and I was eighteen years old, and I

(08:52):
went straight into Fashion Week London, Paris, Milan. At this point,
I was I was kind of innocent, like I was this. Yeah,
I'd lived in Asia, I had barely had a boyfriend.
I never did any like drugs or alcohol, and I
was thrown into this industry where they're handing you cocaine,

(09:13):
they're handing you drugs and alcohol, and older men are
like gross, older men are sort of prying on these
young girls. And I was in a nightclub once in
Milan after a fashion show and was approached by sort
of like this fixer bouncer guy, and he was like, well,

(09:36):
you know, they've selected you to go for the weekend
to Sant Tropez on their yacht and in return, you'll
get anything you want in the whole world. Basically, I
was just like no, no, thank you, you know, and
they're like, no, you don't have a choice. Really, we've
got your coat and like the car's waiting outside and
we just leave from here. It's like, well that's you know.

(09:58):
And I actually escaped from this situation by hiding under
the bathroom counter. They had given me some drug, I
realized shortly after, because I started getting really loopy, you know,
and I just remember after a while of hiding under
this counter. This other fixer who was working with a
fixer knew me, and he found me in there, and

(10:20):
he came in and I was like, I remember his
name was Marco. He was like, you kind of just
you know, you should just go, like it'll be fun,
you know. I was like, no, I'm really not, I
really don't want to do this. And I was like,
please don't tell them where I am, please, please, like
sort of begging, and he didn't, and I waited a
while and I sort of like found my way back

(10:42):
to the model's apartment. The next morning, I caught a
train out of Milan, just sort of freaked out by
this whole industry that I found myself in, you know.
And then through modeling came this opportunity to go back
to Tokyo. They were like, hey, there's some Gucci fashion

(11:02):
shows and stuff like that happening in Tokyo. There's this
agency that really really wants you. It's like the top
agency there. Why don't you go back to Tokyo, you know?
And I just remembered like this nurturing place of my childhood.
Went back to Tokyo and was there for a few months

(11:23):
and just kept staying and staying because I was like,
I just love Japan, like this is this is my home,
this is my country, you know, and I just I
started doing other things there, like a little bit of
TV stuff, a little film stuff. I was there for
a few months. And I've never actually told this story publicly,

(11:43):
but you asked me about the whole upbringing. No one
everyone even asks, and I think I can talk about it.
But I was nineteen now, I had no no, I
was nineteen. Yeah, I was nineteen. I'd been modeling for
about a year. I was at this Gucci fashion show
and I was modeling in it, and a bunch of
the other girls who were there also, you know, I

(12:06):
spoke Japanese, so they were like, hey, can you find
us some hash? You know? And I wanted to sort
of be cool and even though it wasn't like a
big like big into like I said, drugs or alcohol,
really I knew people, of course, and found this hash

(12:27):
you know that was in my bag. And then after
the fashion show, we were all sort of pungi you
sort of go out and anyways, we went to this
shop that this the police were casing out, and the
police watched us go in watched us come out. It
was a big group and we were all sort of
pulled aside. And oddly enough, hash is very illegal in Japan,

(12:49):
like similar to Indonesian, Malaysia, et cetera. Not death penalty,
but you go to prison. Yeah yeah, and magic mushrooms
were legal. So everyone walked into the shop bought a
ton of magic mushrooms, and then the police sort of
lined us up, you know, and started searching our bags.

(13:10):
And I was a little bit drunk from the champagne
at the show, and I just took this little container
of hash that I had, and while the other models
were emptying, emptying their magic mushrooms in front of them,
and I chucked it into the bushes. Stupid move because
I probably could have just opened the container. It would
have looked like dirt on the bottom of a bag, right,

(13:31):
But I chucked it into the bushes and I was
just like, you know, and someone saw it and they
were like, what's that, you know? Second mistake. First mistake,
chuck it into the bushes. Second mistake, instead of just
being this foreign model girl at eleven thirty at night
on Friday night where none of them speak English and

(13:51):
they're like gesturing us to empty our bags. I jump
in with my fluent Japanese like.

Speaker 4 (13:56):
Oh, dijavi dice, she said, dicky, oh, like I can explain,
don't worry, you know, and they're like bingo, bingo, we
can communicate with that one.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
So we all get put in our in the police cars.
They find the little container in the bush and it's
like eleven thirty at night, and we get taken down
to the police station and they separate us because I'm
the only one with illegal drugs, right, they separate us.
The other three models are in one room and I
am in the other room, and we are all being questioned,

(14:32):
and I obviously lied about everything. You know, where did
you get I don't know. It must have just appeared
in my bag at the and the other girls and
one guy were questioned and they were let go at
about two in the morning, and for me and I
didn't know if they were recording everything, and maybe like

(14:52):
four in the morning, they take me upstairs to do
these like mugshots, you know, and my hair was in
spikes because this was the Guji Fashion Show. Hairstyle of
that season was just spikes, and they took this mugshop basically,
they took me back down to the room where they

(15:12):
were questioning me, and they were questioning me all night
in Japanese, right, and they put me on the phone
too with They had this old phone, like a rotary phone,
and they pick up the receiver and they hand me
the receiver and I put the receiver to my ear
and there was this recording it sounded like and it

(15:34):
was this voice that could said you are now under
arrest in English, even though I understood fluent Japanese. They
did hand me this recorder and they said you are
now under the arrest, you know. And at the same time,
they were like, well, would you like us to notify
your embassy, you know? And I just thought about my
freaking father who's in Hong Kong, who at this point
is sort of running the private bank of Liechtenstein, and no,

(15:58):
just how angry he would be. And he's a scary person.
He's a very very scary man. So I was much
more afraid of him finding out than the Canadian embassy.
And I just said, no, no, no, no, no, no,
I can I'm thinking my head, I can get myself
out of this. I've handled myself for years. I can
get myself out of this too, you know. They're like okay,

(16:19):
and so they put me in this police car. In
about six and six thirty in the morning, I arrive
in this prison in Asaksa, just outside of Tokyo, where
they take all my belongings. Because it's a criminal case.
I'm not allowed one phone call. They basically take all
my belongings. They count everything like one bobby pin, two
bobby pins, you know, put it in an envelope and give

(16:43):
me a pair of prison pjs and put me into
a cell with a bunch of other girls who are
underage because at this point I'm nineteen and a minor
in Japan is anyone under twenty. So I was nineteen
arrived at this cell pretty freaked out. I remember I

(17:04):
was sort of sitting in the corner. Everyone was waking up,
and they were like they didn't know I spoke Japanese
at that point, so they're just like, oh, not any
owe an uncle, Like who's that like little white girl
in here? Now? You know, I started speaking to them
in Japanese and you slowly just you know, start integrating

(17:25):
into this weird new world that you find yourself in.
You know, about two days in. It was Sunday, and
they have this thing where they take you down to
the prosecutor and they handcuffed me, put me on a
bus all like black windows with a bunch of other people.
You're like tied with a rope to all the other

(17:47):
people that are going down with you, and they lead
you down into the basement of this prison, this courthouse,
and they put you in these tiny little cells where
you sit it squished between other people on a wooden
bench and there's a little sort of hole in the
floor toilet on that side, so if you use it,

(18:10):
you use it basically with everyone in this little tiny
cell with you. They put you on this wood wooden
bench and they make you sit there for about ten hours.
And I researched this after getting out of prison, that
this was a sort of prison torture technique during World
War Two is they make prisoners of war sit on

(18:31):
wooden slabs for many hours. Because after about four hours
of not being able to move on a wooden slab,
you can't stand up, and you can't you know, there's
no movement. You just your whole body starts weighing like
a thousand pounds and you start you know, having breathing

(18:51):
issues and you're in so much pain that you're just sweating.
And all of this is for about twenty minutes. They
walk you down this long hallway to this room of
prosecutors and you sit down on the bench and they
say you were caught with blah blah blah hash did
you know? And they basically repeat to you everything that

(19:12):
you have said in either questionings that they call you
in for, which as time went on, they called me
in for further questioning and or the initial night of
the first examination of the case, you know, and they
say you were cass this is true. I'm like yes,
and they're like, okay, great, see you and your preliminary

(19:36):
hearing will be set in about a month. And at
this point, no one knows I'm in there. You know.
It's Sunday. Monday comes and I don't show up to
the job that I was supposed to do. My modeling
agency started looking for me. I became sort of a
missing person. Tuesday comes round and I'm a totally missing person,

(20:01):
you know. But they heard through the grapevine that the
models that I was arrested with on Friday night were
actually from a different agency. And they were released separately
from me, so they just thought I had been released,
you know, and we didn't. We weren't all like close friends,
so no one really called each other. I guess over

(20:22):
the weekend to be like where's Odessa. I actually just
thought how am I going to get myself out of this?
And maybe it's a product of my upbringing, but that
I was thinking, how am I going to plead to
these people to let me go. I did not have
even have a thought that someone would come looking for me.
There was no no one's going to come find me. No,
in a way I grew up, no one gave a shit.

(20:44):
I was let Like the day that we won the
Bafta to like fast forward, I had this conversation with
my dad who was just like laughing and he was like, wow,
I can't believe you made it this far.

Speaker 5 (20:56):
Like you you know, we were pretty's I remember.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Four months four months old. I think we would leave
you in the house alone while you are your mother,
and I would go out for the evening. You know.
I'm just like imagine myself probably crying for hours and
then figuring out no one's there and Okay, I better
figure it out. Myself. It's life, you know.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, it's a conditioning.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
It's a conditioning. Yeah. And that happened many many times
in my childhood, different variations of that where it was
like okay, so I never had this thought because to
fast forward from prison. Also, I had very bad I
developed very bad heart problems when I was twenty five
and was very sick, and ultimately I was stuck in

(21:46):
that Japanese prison for forty two days. It was really tough.
There were many days of questioning, but when they see
with Japanese prison, they can hold you for up to
three months without sentencing you. An eventually they did find me.
My dad knew or had some relationship with the Canadian
ambassador and in Japan and I was a missing person

(22:09):
and he was like listen, like we're the only last
lead we have is she was arrested. Like do you
think you could just go and search the potential prisons
that she would know? He searched the database, there was
no record of me. Well, I don't know, maybe you
didn't have access to the database. But he asked like
he was like, there's no record of any Canadians being
we would be alerted, you know, But I had said, no,

(22:30):
don't notify the emisopere. Yeah, and so I'm going to
break out on my own with heart exactly exactly, and
so you know, and you can fast forward that to Navalney.

(22:54):
When we started, I mean when we started on this
crazy adventure, it was me in Jordan at the end
of making another documentary and I was looking at the
Indian I was spending time in these refugee camps on
the Syrian Jordanian border, and I was invited to dinner

(23:15):
one night by a friend in Jordan. And at this
dinner came a very curious character who had just come
from Yemen, and I thought he was doing something really
interesting in Yemen. And that guy is Carl von Habsburg,
the Archduke of Austria, well, the hereditary Archduke. If there
was still an empire, he would be the emperor. Yes, yes,

(23:36):
the Emperor. I was speaking to Carl, and I got
to know Carl, and Carl had some very interesting stories himself.
After getting to know him better, he said, I want
you to meet my best friend Kristo Grosev. And Christo
is the Bulgarian nerd with the laptop in the movie
navalneyhow he's the one who you know, cracks the investor

(24:00):
with the Kill Team. He's one of my best friends.
He's very, very under threat by the He's very Yeah,
he's he can't even go return to Europe anymore. He's
in the US. Yeah, he's in the US. There actively
are people who are assigned to kill.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Him, and I'm sure, I mean, it makes so much sense.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, he's very effective at what he does at taking
down the Russian government, you know, and he is just
one of the most extraordinary people I know. And I
feel slightly responsible for his situation now because he was
fairly private before making Navalney. You know, he would publish

(24:45):
it through Bellingcat, but usually anonymously. I mean, he's a
crusader for the truth. And he gave up everything, you know,
he gave up having a family, et cetera. Obviously, like
his family have to live separately and do their own thing.
And there wasn't even a question in his mind. We
were making a documentary and he was going to phone

(25:05):
the Kill Team. And it's not like Daniel the director
and who I had met the director shortly after meeting
Carl On Habsburg and sort of pitched him on this idea,
and we started digging into what we could work on
together and Carl Carl being one Carl Christo route Right

(25:26):
at the time, I tell you, like Daniel and I
were not famous documentary film people. We were just sort
of like he had made one film, I had made
one film. And at the time as well, like we
had no CNN films, we had no HBO, we had
no Warner Media. We had me and Christo putting it
on our credit cards. For the entire shooting period. It

(25:48):
was like, Chris, do I begged this DP to work
for almost nothing? Do you think you could pay that?
I'll pay this. I have a little bit more space
on this credit are what do you have? Like we
knew we were filming something crazy and so you could
feel how special it was. Yeah, whole time, well you

(26:09):
the phone call.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
We actually shot pretty like I would say a few
weeks after meeting Alexey and that day No, Daniel and
I looked at each other and.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
We were just like, oh my god, no, not, what
are we doing? Like this film? This just became a film,
you know, this just.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Became Yeah, that's what I meant, you know, It's like
it's like but also what I was I am interested
in is like the like it's like there's a difference,
Like we both have worked on many projects, and everyone
that's listening probably has too, but there's a difference sometimes
when you just know, you just know there's something special
about something and it feels that way, and it's everything

(26:51):
about it resonates that way, and everyone that comes involved
with it feels it too. And it seems to me
like this project it was that it was just.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Like you knew every day that you were capturing something
magical and Alick say it was Navalny. I mean, he
was such a great character on camera. Like I think
one of the first things we shot was him walking
with his wife. I think it might have been the
first day we filmed with him, actually first or second.

(27:20):
We shot a bunch of Christo before, but the first
or second of just working with Navalny and just that
little walk to Donkey and pony and how funny he
was like feeding his little horse and teasing Yulia and
then walking back and connecting, you know, picking the apple
to like Russian politics and Russian opposition politics, and we

(27:42):
were just like, this is a great subject of a documentary.
You know, you had someone who was also very media savvy,
which was something we had to be aware of the
whole time, like how much media manipulation is going on here?
Very smart, he understood documentary would serve a purpose for him,

(28:03):
you know, and we had to be conscious of that,
make sure that they had no creative control, which was
also a big struggle. They were very careful about the media.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Were they stund offish in the beginning in terms of like, well, here,
what's your agenda here? This is what my agenda is?
Was it just hard to kind of get over that
buyer that was there a moment where it all came together, like,
well on the sampage going for this because it seems
like you guys are very close.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, well, Alexey was is someone who was always very
very open, you know, and very willing and sort of
trusting almost immediately. But I think that's because he has
this sort of other part of him, which is Maria Pevcik,
and she's like the gatekeeper. She was very hard to

(28:49):
deal with and very and we didn't have direct access
to him in the beginning. He had to go through her,
and her and Daniel would fight on set just I
mean it was really challenging because it was just me Daniel,
a cameraman and a sound guy for the most part
of the entire shooting, you know, and Maria making our
lives difficult. But I actually really liked Maria. I could

(29:13):
see the role that she she She had a tough
role to play, you know, she was the gatekeeper of
the Russian opposition.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, and I'm sure she had her own like version
of like bindaries for.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Life exactly, and she and she had an understanding of,
you know, just how to also protect Alexey and this
was her job, you know, legally just watching out for him,
et cetera.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Like she was responsible and she probably understood that he
was like he had a part of him that was,
you know, because he's he's like it's like he's for
the people. It's like you can tell that he's like
just would be a t Well, this is just my interpretation,
and I think you might have just said it, but
I do think there's probably a part of him that
would be very trusting and very willing to give to
get involved right away.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
And that's him. He gives and he gives any he gives,
and it would give so much like his he would
never like say no to us. You know, you'd be like, oh, hey,
you want to come over at eleven o'clock at night
and do something. Okay, fine, let's just make it work.
You know, we can do this. But Maria was much
more like protective of his time and his energy and
sort of had to be like, hold on a second,

(30:20):
you know, but I mean soon enough, I would say,
within the first week, Navonni just gave me his number directly,
and then I would just abuse that, like can I
pick you up at seven am?

Speaker 1 (30:29):
And go ho, let's get the killers gone.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
And Maria also is someone who has no sense of
like self preservation. You know, she is now running the
whole organization. She lives in exile in Lithuania. She's also
one of my closest friends. I mean, Maria, Christo and
I really became family life changing. My entire life is different,

(30:53):
you know, in so many ways. Now I'm now inner
circle of Cristo and Maria, which also makes me a
target of the Russian government and making the film and
being like myself and Daniel being the originating side of
the film and in the forest with Liksay and then
I went and I continued from there, spent the last

(31:14):
year in Ukraine embedded with the government of Ukraine while
they're fighting the war, trying to help them. That is
a very interesting and tragic situation where you are dealing
with a country. And it's funny because we actually started
navalny in Ukraine because Christo was digging into an investigation

(31:34):
there that had to do with the capture of the
planning of a sting operation by the Ukrainian SBU, which
is equivalent to the CIA, to capture thirty two Wagner
fighters who were key in starting the unrest in Ukraine
in twenty fourteen. They spent two years identifying these very
key Wogner guys, masterminded a whole plan to capture them,

(32:00):
and then the plan was actually botched by the administration
at the time. It was started during Porshenko and it
was called off during Zelensky on in the eleventh hour.
And I do understand why. It's because like they were
planning this huge sting operation, they were going to down
a plane over Ukrainian territory, a commercial airliner over the

(32:23):
nineteen minutes that it was passing over Ukrainian territory with
these Wagner fighters on board who had been duped into
thinking they'd got a job in Venezuela. Arrest them, cause
a huge international like Ukraine at this time, was just
dealing with like the whole Trump stuff. It was an
insane plan, but it was working, and the guys were
in Minsk when they were all arrested.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
By it was arrested the guys on the planet or
the Russian the.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Wagner guys, yes, okay, so the rest they got them
to Vinsk. They're boarding them on a Turkish airliner flight.
The Ukrainian government called it off. They put them in
a day spa for three days outside of Minsk, where
I think Lukshenko right, Lukshenko went in and arrested them,
and then he had them and he actually and for

(33:10):
a few days Ukraine and was begging them to give
them there these war criminals, where Putin was demanding them
back obviously, and Lukshenka flew to Sochi, did some kind
of deal, and the next day you saw green berets
all over quelling the protests. This was during the height
of the protests after that election where Svetlana's husband was arrested.

(33:35):
I think this was during the height of those protests
and you saw the Wagner guys in those protests and
they were given back to Russia. What was the deal.
It was, we'll give you back your twenty thirty two
war criminals like what for support to get rid of
the opposition, to quell the protests, and then it secured
Lukashenko's reign.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Okay, sorry, I'm yeah, I got you.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
It was like two years ago during the high all
those protests, you know, and it was hugely bad for
the Ukrainian government and this was referred to as Wagner
Gate in Ukraine and it started really contributing to the
downfall of Sinzilinski administration before the war, you know. And

(34:20):
then he and then the war started and he he
truly was I think I think he's the greatest leader
for this time in history for what is happening there
because of his ability to communicate, his ability to remind
the population of their humanity to not let because what

(34:41):
the what Russia is doing there is they're waging a
campaign where they're trying to make the Ukrainian people angry
that that's this indiscriminate bombing, you know. Okay, well we'll
just bomb that apartment building and then we'll just bomb
that hospital and we'll just make you afraid all the
time that something might get hit, you know. And this

(35:04):
way of warfare was similar to what they did in Chechnya.
And look at what happened to Chechnya. They became these killers,
They became what the Russians were trying to get them
to become at this time. And if you watch Zelenski's
address to the Ukrainian people every day, it's remember your humanity,

(35:25):
you know. And even though I know they're very angry
at the Russian people and the Russian people in whole,
like they've you know, canceling every Russian they can, left,
right and center, which I don't necessarily agree with. Also,
I think there needs to be a place for compassion
towards like at least the Russians that are trying to

(35:47):
fight the fight with them. In their mind, they're like,
well they didn't do enough. Putin was still in power,
you know. And I can understand that they're having a
trauma response right now, you understand where it comes from.
I've been in Ukraine's so much like it's really it's
really hard to watch what's going on there, and it's
destroyed their lives. And imagine like you and I and

(36:09):
we have these dreams and we're making films or you're
doing your podcast and your projects, and then all of
a sudden everything has to go away because you either
have to join the army, leave the country, or there's
just no industry anymore other than war and fighting that war.
Your historical film archive where you're this or that gets
all absorbed by the government to try and figure out

(36:30):
how to fund the war machine because they're fighting being
part of the Soviet Union again, you know, like they
have fought for hundreds of years to get away from
that aggressor. You know, it's not just now, it goes
back for as long as the Ukrainian history goes back
that they dealt with this aggressor. You know, and look
at Holotomore in the nineteen thirties where they surrounded villages

(36:54):
and starved thirty three million. God, I got to get that, man.
I think it's three million Ukrainians died in that winter.
And they feel very strongly that that is not the
family that they want to be a part of, you know.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah, and so what's in terms of like I guess
since I was there it's been a while, and you know,
I only had helped helps the terrible word. I don
only basically just facilitated Ukrainians to find somewhere to stay
in Poland. But you know, it's a while ago, so
I'm interested. I know a lot of those people have

(37:33):
gone back to Ukraine, and I know things have changed
pradically there. But I'm interested to know what, like your
tick is on, what's what's life like there for those people?
Not like what what's the future look like for them?
What's going on?

Speaker 2 (37:48):
You know, well, it depends on where you are. If
you're in Kiev, there's some semblance of life that has
cobbled itself together. You know, most of the restaurants are
back open shops, but the industry as all shifts. So
if you worked in tech or something, you now work
in tech, the tech side of how to wage this war.

(38:11):
You know, if you worked in film, you're probably now
working for a news agency or a documentary people like me,
because there's not really productions that are happening. There's no
film industry. If you worked in art, you are probably
trying to do something to bring awareness to Ukrainian identity

(38:35):
or something. You know, I don't know, it's like everything
has sort of moved in this very patriotic right direction.
And if you are, you know, if you just worked
in normal I don't know, insurance job or something work,
it's tough, like there's so much joblessness, and you maybe

(38:57):
joined the army. The economy is just terrible, right, And
if you were, I mean I knew a jazz student
who went and joined the Territorial Defense, you know, the
husband of the woman who ran the film center, Territorial Defense,
you know, and it's just weird. But then it was

(39:18):
all weird. And then I noticed at some point, I
think like last June, where it just kind of shifted
and everyone was like, Okay, this war is not going anywhere,
and the mentality shifted. A lot of people left and
they're trying to figure it out in other places in
the world, right, Like their jobs were destroyed, their future.

(39:43):
It's just crazy to go through a war like that.
And then you watch the leadership, which I have a
lot of respect for. I've sat with many of them
while they are making trying to make pivotal decisions and
move through winning this war, and they just fight it
with their heart and soul, you know, there's no you

(40:06):
hear things like, oh, but maybe it's you know, just
the West that's uh funding this war because of their
benefit and da da da, and it's just there's not
really like this overmind that plans everything this way.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
You know, similar in any kind of crisis situation, like
where you've got all these people that will try to
say that some government or some body of people that
like we are going to charge they're trying to benefit
from it, here's what we're going to pump all this
information out about it. But when there's a crisis going on,
there's no mastermind. There's a crisis.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
There's a crisis, and they're trying to figure out how
to communicate as best as possible with the governments that
are supporting them. And of course the US is the
largest supporter of this war. But still I have to say,
we go and you know, Biden goes on TV and goes, well,
we're going to give you a forty billion dollar package
of weapons. And I know, because I'm on the inside,

(41:02):
that really only ten percent of that actually arrives, and
only ten percent of that ten percent it's like older stuff, right,
you know, yeahs or stuff that requires a lot of training,
and even though and they'll never say it themselves because
they're so grateful for every little bit of help they're getting,
but they just don't have enough to win the war.

(41:22):
It's like and you know, we are trying to. It
is and we and you know Putin is engaged in
this sort of old school ammunitions munitions warfare, and so
we're like digging through our warehouses to try and find
this munitions that match what we're being fought at with.

(41:43):
Where we do have like F sixteen's and Himer's and
all this stuff that could just freaking end the war
in like three days, you know, like if we wanted
to blow.

Speaker 5 (41:52):
The shit out of this the Russian you know defense
there and just like when we could and we do
have the power also to just like shut down the
bank accounts.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
So you know, they had all these loopholes in place,
so sanctions aren't really working as well as we hoped
they would work. And you still have all the Russians
in vacationing in Seychelles or Dubai or whatever. It's like
we know where their money is. You know, we can
pressure those Zamarati banks to say, shut down their accounts

(42:25):
or you're not getting this. Amaranti lives on the support
of the United States, Like there's so much power that
we could wield, and we don't because I don't know,
we're afraid of the threat of nuclear which I think
is silly. I don't think at this point. I think
Putin has made the assessment that is more disadvantageous for

(42:45):
him to use nukes. And if you look at the
history of him and his habits, he's very good at
threatening and never doing anything. Like if you do this,
I'm going to nothing happens. If Finland joining Little Bro,
you're gonna do nothing happens. You know. It's like we
should should at some point just have some balls and

(43:07):
and the war.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, but yeah, totally I agree. But you know, the
new E side of it is I think laughable because
it's usually it's your destruction at the end of the day.

Speaker 5 (43:14):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
So it's like, but if you have the ability to
just come in and take it, you know, the Russian
government on all the guys with all the money, but
you do. But instead you're gonna send forty billion but
get four one hundred million over and it doesn't work.
It's like, what's the point of that.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, just the Ukrainian prison money suffer and they suffer more.
If we'd even send what we're sending today day one
of the war, we would have ended it.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
And so then it brings me to the question of like,
you know, obviously this you are an insider, and this
is not my strength our expertise, I should say, But
you know, the obviously people profit here from war and
that's not a foreign concept. But how much of that
is just that this sounds like that's just the real
of this situation at the point, because if there is

(44:01):
the ability to end the war instantly, but there are
news articles on weapons and all on support, that's really
just it's like a it's like a it's like a
lost leader. You know, it's like it's not going to
actually do anything, but we're going to make the appearance
of doing something. What is what is the benefit of that, Like,

(44:21):
what's the benefit of that to the Biden administration if
it doesn't really have an impact? I mean, I mean
it's marketing.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
I guess, yeah, marketing, I think you know, like, yeah,
I don't even know. I mean, I guess weapons manufacturers
are making more money maybe, but I don't even know,
because it's not it's more like it's more like hesitancy
and indecision. But oh, it's still looking good for me.

(44:52):
But I don't want to do too much, you know,
but I'm going to do enough to make it look
like I am on this side. But you know, I
do I wonder if much actually happens. You know, I've
noticed that several times in dealing with the administration, is
there's a lack of like, let's take a stance, let's

(45:13):
do something, let's be decisive on this, you know, and
yet let's just make it look like everything's okay. We'll
do a little bit here and a little bit there.
And at the same time, like there's a lot of
insidious things that are happening, you know, a lot of
freedom of speech being affected, et cetera. And I think

(45:33):
with Ukraine, if there's also a bureaugraphy around it, right
there's some people that are forgiving, there's some people that
are against, and so it's sort of like balancing the
different personalities.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
What's the what's the landscape in the political landscape in Ukraine?
Like right now, I within the actual parties, right so,
because because I did an interview with a woman called
Inosovson about a year ago, and she needs a small party.
They're kind of favored by the LGBTQ Unity. And she
had her own opinions on what should have been done

(46:04):
with infrastructure in Ukraine prior to this first this this
recent invision from Russia, which was that you know that
he should have invested heavily in education and all these
other things as opposed to infrastructure, because he's the roads
he built were the roads that the tanks came down first.
But like, what what's that?

Speaker 2 (46:23):
What's it like?

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Nai there like because at that point in time, sorry,
just to add one more thing, she kind of made
it clear to me that nobody everyone had agreed to
be pro Zolenski because this very early days and they
didn't want to send a message that you know, there
was any division at all. So but I know time's
gone on and you've been there a lot, and you're
heavily involved, Like what's your what what have you kind

(46:45):
of picked up on there?

Speaker 2 (46:46):
In that regard, I think the country is still very
heavily pro Zelenski, which I think is really important because
when you're at war, you really just need like the
collectivity of everyone coming together to get you know, It's
like Alexay in his fight for human rights, he used
to say, like I really can't talk about like education

(47:08):
or insurance or you know, those things yet because we're
fighting primitive politics. We're fighting for human rights, freedom of speech,
you know. And this is what's happening in Ukraine right now.
And so I do think it's very important that the
country just rallied behind Zelenski. They're doing a great job.
And when I first went to Ukraine, I was with

(47:28):
more the opposition. I was with Porshenko. I was digging
into this investigation that criticized the Zelensky administration. The Zalinski
administration put me on a military surveillance list.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
What was your instinct to kind of take that path
to it was?

Speaker 2 (47:42):
I was brought in by Christo who was looking into
this investigation. At the time, it looked like that administration
was not doing what was best for the people, right So,
like I said, I was put on a military surveillance list.
I was pushed out of Ukraine. But after the war start,
after I embedded, I changed completely my opinion on this administration.

(48:03):
They I think are the first administration in a long
time to want what's best for the country versus looking
at how to profit from it.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
You know, it definitely does appear that way, and I'm
not saying it there's that way that really. I mean,
it's the only government I can think all that actually
does come across that way, which is amazing.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah, and I do think I have a problem now
because I've been there where the sort of poor shenko
opposition are trying to create problems or create fissures within
the government and create lies about this or that, and
everyone's doing their best. They didn't always do the right thing,
but it's not like they have this insidious goal, like

(48:40):
there's this wild conspiracy theory that like Yermak is you know,
FSB or has ties to the FSB or something. And
I'm just like, guys, shut up, Like, let's just fight
the war and get over that, and then you guys
can go back to fighting your two different political parties.
You know. Yeah, I just think that that is counterproductive

(49:02):
because then it makes the people who are already feeling
insecure about their life and their future go, oh, well,
what maybe our government is actually on the side of Russia,
you know, and then and you know, can you imagine
you're like losing your home, da da da, and then
there's like all these whispers about, oh, maybe your government's

(49:25):
actually on Russia's side. It just would create so much
mental illness for you that I don't believe in that
it's the time to even give voice to an opposition. Yet.
Let's get through getting Russia out of those territories, you know,
and then have an election, go back to you know,

(49:48):
your political parties. But Ukraine has really never had a
great political party yet until this one is done really well.
You know, I would say during this wartime before that
what Porshenk, there was still so much corruption under him,
I mean Yushenko who turned in the end, Yanikovich who
was driven out, Like look at their last twenty years

(50:11):
compared to Poland, which is a very similar scenario, right,
There's been so little innovation and advancement in Ukraine because
of just like corruption after corruption, Russian influenced puppet leadership,
Like give them a chance to just thrive as a separate,
independent country.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
You know, there was this kind of thing in the
air about his Nazi sympathizing, whatever that is. I don't know,
you know, I'm sure there's like a lot of inner
workings within the political system in Russia. But I'd love
to hear your opinion on that or give shed some
light on like what that is.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yeah, So, first of all, I will say that Christo
himself discovered a file in the FSB. He got access
to a file and the FSB that was started being
created around twenty fourteen twenty around when Alexey ran for mayor,

(51:16):
because they could see his popularity was so big, and
the file that was created on him was to manufacture
Russian propaganda that would make people think that he was
a Nazi sympathizer. And what they piggybacked on, like what
they identified to use that was that when Alixe was campaigning,

(51:39):
his approach was that we have United Russia which we
have to take down. And the only way we're going
to take down United Russia, which is Putin's party, is
by the rest of the opposition uniting, whether you're the
LGBTQ Liberal Party or the Nazi far right maniac which

(52:00):
likes say would never identify with he is. I spent
many months with him. He's very much I would say,
an equivalent to a sort of centrist democrat, you know,
he just he knew that or he believed that in
order to defeat United Russia, all the parties needed to unite.
Let's just get to that place and then we can

(52:23):
sort of fight amongst each other to hopefully in a
free and fair election to decide the fate of the country.
And you have to understand, Russian politics are very right already,
Like there is no I don't even think there is
an LGBTQ party, you know, they are incredibly Yeah, it's
just different from the US, like their left is our

(52:45):
right probably, and so their very right is a very
dark sort of Nazi sympathy sympathetic party. And he would
speak at those rallies and they just identify the photos
and put put you know, made a huge campaign to
try and smear him.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Yeah, but his goal was to say, you know, yeah,
we're all we all have to overthrow a putt In.
So let's forget about this specific ideology or this thing
that happened or would like to be in a Nazi
Let's just forget about what that is and focus on
the fact that we have to overthrow this guy, right eyes,
So let's all identify on common commonality, you know, in

(53:28):
this country that we're living in and.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Yeah, do it love for Russia. Let's unite under that.
Let's get rid of this thief that is basically stealing
the revenue of all the twenty years of economic boom
that's happened under Russia that he's just pocketed for him
and his cronies. Right, let's get this guy out. Yeah,
and then you know, we can have an election and

(53:51):
go from there. But yeah, his approach was always to
talk to to talk to those that he wouldn't necessarily
identify with or be.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
What a guy you keeps talking about him in the
past tense do I Yeah, I've picked up a couple
of times.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Wow, well, I guess because does it.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Feel that way like you know what I mean, not
that he's gone, but as it feels like he's just
he's not able to just communicate with the.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
All the time, you know, No, I mean since he
went to prison, I've I've had a few letters, yeah,
you know, which are just so it's so sweet to
hear from this person who was a friend. Yeah, when
you spend a very powerful time together and you all
become so close and then it feels like he just

(54:41):
went away.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
I'm just curious because obviously on that flight in the
documentary coming back into Russia. Surely everybody knew that that
was it for he was going to get me arrested.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
No, no, not at all.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Really.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
I was there in the in the days leading up
to it, and this is actually the most common question.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
I'm sure it is. Yeah, I don't know, but.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
There was a lot of talk about going back. It
was well, maybe I'll be shot in the airport. And
he's you see in the film he has like dark humor.
He's very good at dark humor, and so he would
joke to me and be like, he's like, if they
shoot me in the airport on the on their return

(55:25):
to Russia, you think you'll sell your movie for more money,
I'll be like, say, just too dark, you know. But
he was. He was so lighthearted.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
That such a testament to his character, it.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
Really is, you know. And and he was just willing.
He just said to me, because I was like, like, see,
why not even have this little video in my iPhone
of me saying and he's pretending to be this bartender
because we were shooting in a bar where the interviews
were happening one of the days, and he's like wiping
the Hunters. He's like, so, Odessa, tell me your problems.

(56:02):
Isn't that what bartenders do, like they listen to people's problems.
And they didn't. And I was like, well, I have
a friend who is going back to Russia and might
be killed or go to prison. And he's like, oh,
come on, everything's going to be all right. And he
looks me in the eye and like smiles. And that

(56:23):
was Alexey. He was just someone who was an optimist.
He always thought, well, maybe that thing that is like
the best option of it could happen. The president that
had been set is that any Russian politician that tried
to operate from outside of Russia becomes irrelevant almost immediately.
You can look at casprov you can look at Kordokovski.

(56:46):
You know, they become irrelevant in Russia. The Russian people
do not care about hearing from you if you're sitting
comfortably in your London apartment or your New York home. Right,
So he knew. He was like, what am I going
to do? I'm going to sit and Germany. You'd say
to me, no, that is that at death is better
than that, Like like I was born for this mission.

(57:08):
I am a Russian politician, and he was like, no
matter what I have to face, I have to go
back to try and change the system. This scenario that
is playing out right now, where he's sitting in solitary
confinement and he's been sentenced to around fourteen years, facing
another fifteen years, this was never discussed. It was okay,

(57:30):
maybe three years, maybe five, maybe like maybe three, but
in a normal prison where I just have to read
a lot of books. And he would say like, oh,
just read a lot of books. It's boring, but I
like reading. You know, this scenario where the war starts
and the and he's in solitary. They did not see
this happening Putin because they thought that his profile had

(57:54):
raised so much with international governments. Putin was still in
good standing ish with international governments, and they just didn't
see him going this far. And if the war had
already started, I don't believe that he would have gone back,
because now it is acceptable for Russians to operate from
outside Russia. Everyone left what was.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
The timeline between him arriving in Russia on that flight
and the.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Current war happening one year exactly one year. One of
the greatest messages of this film is that it's time,
like now is the time in history where we basically

(58:44):
have to stop thinking about just our own little happy story,
like I want to have kids, I want to have
a good job, I want to buy a house. I
just don't think it's the time for that anymore. I
think it's the time to stand up and fight for
something that you believe in and you want on this planet,

(59:05):
you know, whatever world you're in. Maybe it's fight for
better education in your kids' schools, or maybe it's fight
not just sort of accept it and think, well, at
least you got dinner on the table, tennis lessons on
the weekend, or whatever. Like in every area of life,
our government is failing us, you know, Insurance companies, corporate

(59:31):
interests have taken over as far as like it's their
interest before human interests and this country and around the world.
And I do think that it's the time now, or
else it will be too late where you have to
figure out what world you're living in and fight for

(59:51):
what you want to see in your future and your
kid's future in that world that you're part of, you know,
And it's no longer the time just to build a
comfy life Unfortunately, you know, we didn't. We started on
a bad track I think after World War Two, where
we could have created a country and a world that
really listened to the people, but it was still sort

(01:00:14):
of corporate interests at the core of the goals for
this nation. And it's led us to a place where
I think that it's very precarious the sort of ledge
that humanity stands on. And I don't know, Alexay gave

(01:00:39):
up everything to fight for what is his world, which
is freedom for the Russian people, you know, the freedom
of speech, freedom of expression, and we are not feeling
it as much as they do in Russia. But I
think we're in a time in history where we have

(01:01:02):
to fight for it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yeah, And what's your what's the dynamic like now with
you know, the inner group of you guys like fighting
for this and after making the documentary and not the
success of it, Like, what's the dynamic now and what's
the what's the like? I'm sure the goal is the
same thing, which is what you just explained about fighting
for something bigger and like using our voices as individuals
to like actually express what we want and like fight

(01:01:25):
for that as opposed to like you know, waiting for
some greater good that may not exist, or some government
that's not actually there to help you. It's like taking
it into your own hands essentially. But like, how has
that changed or has that changed? It's all I assume
you guys are still working hard to you know, free
him and also to get the message.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
More and more and more, working harder than ever. I mean,
the daily reality is one that everyone in that inner
circle of my Nivaalney family is under threat every single day.
You know. Maria and Christo have taken on huge roles

(01:02:05):
basically exposing and trying to take down the Russian government
and as a result, are, like I said, very targeted.
And I get phone calls anytime of the day. I
just broke out into rash. If I don't pick up
the phone in two hours, call this person. You know,
I feel a little bit sick. Maybe we should call

(01:02:28):
our chemical weapons poison expert in northern Germany, you know.
I and this is the reality that they I'm landing
at one am, you know, can someone pick me up?
Because I probably shouldn't enter my apartment by myself. You know,

(01:02:49):
that is the very cold, hard reality existence. It's well,
it's gotten worse after the Oscar and it got worse
probly from about a year ago, just as the film
was getting more and more, like for me personally, and
for Kristo with the Ukraine War, because he was really

(01:03:10):
publishing a lot of investigations that were identifying, you know,
the missile launch team in Russia, proving that they are
targeting apartment buildings and hospitals. You know. And for Maria
as she's she is now the head of the Navalni Foundation,

(01:03:30):
she's one of the main forces in keeping it alive.
And she even started a separate channel to report on
the war, and her investigations get more and more targeted.
You know, she has taken down personally people in Putin's
inner circle, and even I think you heard about things
like his yacht that was seized. You know, that's just Maria.

(01:03:51):
So can you imagine that pisses him off? Right? And
And but I tell you there, like all of us,
our willingness to fight just gets stronger and stronger. Like
that doesn't it's that doesn't phase us at all. Might

(01:04:12):
be poisoned. Got to publish this investigation at seven am,
you know, it's like there's yeah, yeah, it's like We're
not going to give up, you know, or lay down
and let you conquer us. Right, It's no, it's the

(01:04:34):
organization has grown. They're one of the only organizations that
still get independent media into Russia through YouTube because YouTube
hasn't been shut down, right, So this is they have
a nightly daily broadcast. So they are an investigative news
agency that is really one of the only ways that

(01:04:57):
the Russian people can get the real truth, you know.
And they're completely donation based. I should just say, just
in case anyone wants to support it because their organization
Anti Corruption Foundations, you can just go online the Anti
Corruption Foundation and donate. And yeah, they they are, they

(01:05:21):
are they They have probably one hundred people working for
them in Lithuania working on getting the truth out into Russia.
And so his movement is still strong, like he and
he is very vocal from prison, you know. This is
one of the main reasons he's in solitary confining since

(01:05:43):
last August's.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Just you know, give them an extremely unfair deal, even
within the system.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Of even in the system. Yeah, they do things like
deprive him of winter boots, et cetera, like really try
and torture him. They've been weaponizing patients where they put
them in the infirmary and and put them in the
cell with Alexey until he gets sick, and then once
he's sick, barely give him any water, don't let him
sleep more than the So there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
Will still almost fear them because they could just kill them,
but they can't, like they can't be seen to have
just killed them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Yeah, you know what I mean. I think they're slowly
trying to kill him.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
Yeah, but it does mean like, it does mean that
they're not wanting to overtly come out and say we
did that, because it means too much for them to
say that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
At this point, which when he was dying almost from
the hunger strike, they you know, there were many governments
that said, if he dies, you will have a problem
with us. But since then the war started, Putin's reputation
and relationship on the world stage has changed so honestly,
every day we are even surprised that he's still alive. Yeah,

(01:06:50):
and I just I have a feeling though that he wouldn't.
He won't be able to last long in this system
because he's so vocal. He uses every court appearance time,
like where he's gone in for an appeal to speak
against the war. He speaks against the war through messages
that he can get onto his Instagram channel obviously doesn't

(01:07:13):
or Twitter feed, you know, via his staff.

Speaker 5 (01:07:19):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
It's either, in my opinion, him or Putin, like Putin.
The minute Putin goes down, the next leader I believe
will release him, no matter who that is, because they
will want to differentiate themselves from Putin.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
So you said that you got you guys get informed
that you don't want to kill us. Like what's that process?
Do you get a piece of meal or an email
or like what happens?

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
I can't tell you, but yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Uh, you get informed, right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
You get informed? Wow?

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
Yeah, yeah, I honestly kind of imagine what that must
be like.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Yeah, honestly, it was just like, yeah, whatever, I don't
know why, Like it's just you know, I guess you're
so deep in You're so deep in it you lose
perspective and you're just like okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
And how much of those threats do they feel? I'm
sure they feel very real because of the threats that
are the things that have already happened.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
They get very real when things like Maria gets a
rash and that she can't explain for a week and
sees three doctors. We've had weird things happen, like a
woman walking into a restaurant and pointing a gun at
her next to me, you know, and even though it
was a fake gun, it's sort of like a warning. Yeah,
you know, there's just weird stuff that when the weird

(01:08:41):
stuff happens, that's when you're like, hmm, okay, look, I
have a security key on my necklace, which is how
I get into my laptop. You know, it's not just
like a fingerprint for me. You get used to this world,
you know, and people would be like, well, aren't you
afraid for your safety all the campaign trail, and I

(01:09:03):
was just like no, because they're in way more danger.
It's you lose perspective because like Christo and Maria are
in much more.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Danger than what's what's coming up next year? You're going
to keep making documentaries about things like that, like Inspan or.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Yeah, I have another one that's coming up.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Cool. What's it about?

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Can't talk about it yet, okay, but it's very political
and embedded with another regime. M got it cool?

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Well, I'm excited to see that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Yeah, I think it's going to be good. It's something
I've been working on for the last year and a
half also, and I love making these kind of documentaries.
But I just want to say that there's unfortunately less
and less platform for them. You know, CNN Films was
closed this year. They were a platform that really took
on these kind of films. When we first started talk

(01:10:00):
talking to people about Navalny, there was a lot of
like m no, like we you know, like the big platforms, Netflix, Samazon,
et cetera. Everyone's sort of playing it a bit safe.
They also want to expand in different regions, like get
taking on politically sensitive content is getting there's getting harder

(01:10:22):
and harder. There's less and less place for them. It's
not really it's sort of becoming like the old sixty
minutes like investigative journalism, place where you know, monetitarily it's
not necessarily doesn't fit the algorithm right right, right, like

(01:10:42):
Netflix right exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Like it's not as entertaining as well.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
Tiger King right, I don't know, you know, So sadly
there's it's tougher and tougher to get these kind of
films out. I think they're very important, so That's what
I'm going to continue doing. And I hope that as
an industry, we can get together and you know, there's

(01:11:07):
only five big streamers and say like, hey, even though
this part of film is not necessarily getting us our
Marvel revenue, let's find a place for it, you know,
let's be brave enough to take it on and support it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
Are there as film studios or are there are any
platforms that are starting out to support this kind of
like truth telling.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
I've been in discussion with some people in the industry
to try and start something like that. Yeah, it seems
like it's needed. Yeah, I agree.