Its very upsetting, but very unsurprising, Roher tells Deadline.
The regime has taken the approach of what I like to call boiling the frog.
Navalny ran afoul of Vladimir Putin by accusing the Russian president and his cronies of corruption and incompetence.
Alexei Navalny in Moscow’s City Court on May 24, 2022Contributor/Getty Images
The formula for calculating it is simple: what the prosecutor asked for, minus 10-15%.
They asked for 20, they give 18 or something like that.
He predicted he will eventually get an additional 10-year sentence for a pending charge of terrorism.
Alexei Navalny appears in court in Melekhovo, Russia on June 19, 2023.Photo by Natalia KOLESNIKOVA / AFP
Rohers film documents the potent political movement Navalny built in Russia through his anti-corruption campaign.
Navalny fell deathly ill in August 2020 while returning to Moscow on a flight from a Siberian city.
Eventually, he was flown to Germany for treatment, where he slowly recovered.
Navalnyshows him investigating his own poisoning with the help of journalist Christo Grozev.
In January 2021 Navalny returned to Russia, landing at a Moscow area airport.
He was immediately arrested upon his arrival and has remained behind bars ever since.
Roher attended the Academy Awards in March with Navalnys wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and the Navalnys children.
AfterNavalnywas announced as the winner of Best Documentary Feature, he brought the family onto the stage with him.
In perhaps the single most dramatic moment of the Oscar telecast, Roher invited Navalnaya to address the audience.
My husband is in prison just for telling the truth.
In a conversation by phone with Deadline today, Roher commented, That family so profoundly changed my life.
Its painful, and its on the backdrop of this horrible war.
I cant imagine that its a happy day for his family.
It must be incredibly painful and very difficult.
Navalny was locked up, initially, a year before Russias invasion of Ukraine.
The ongoing war has seen the Kremlin treat political dissent even more harshly than before.
A few years ago, Russia was like dictatorship lite.
And [with] this invasion, theyve gone full authoritarian dictatorship.
Thats the state of things in Russia today.
