There is a new controversy concerning Russia in Venice

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the decision to include the film “Dau” by Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky in the programme of the 83rd Venice Film Festival. The Ministry has issued a statement, jointly with the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, in which it argues that at a time when Russia is continuing its war of aggression against Ukraine, systematically destroying cities, cultural heritage and national identity, offering one of the world’s most prestigious cultural platforms to a project linked to the Russian state and its networks of influence sends a deeply worrying signal.

"Dau" is an artistic and cinematic project launched in 2006, originally conceived as a film about the Soviet physicist Lev Landau but which subsequently expanded to include several spin-off works, due to the enormous amount of footage shot. To realise the project, a massive set was constructed to replicate a Soviet research institute in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, where hundreds of professional and non-professional actors lived for months. The project found itself at the centre of controversy right from the start, due to allegations that participants – particularly women – had been subjected to harassment and psychologically abusive conditions on set. The filming involved hundreds of thousands of non-professional extras – including former prison guards, artists and scientists – who lived permanently on set, isolated from the outside world even when the cameras were not rolling. In 2020, at the screening of one of the films in the series at the Berlin Film Festival, Khrzhanovsky responded to journalists’ questions about the allegations of harassment and a difficult working environment for women by describing them as “a bit of a fad” and a consequence of the project’s immersive nature, going so far as to say that he believed the incidents cited had never taken place. He had also claimed that the rumours stemmed from the particular emotional dynamics that had developed within a group isolated for such a long period. An investigation by GQ and, more notably, one by Le Monde reported incidents in which the director allegedly addressed the actresses in a derogatory manner and asked highly personal sexual questions during auditions. Khrzhanovsky and his editor, Ilya Permyakov, had responded in writing to Le Monde, formally contesting the veracity of those accounts, which they described as the result of ‘misunderstandings’. At the very same 2020 presentation, the director had dismissed the allegations reported in the press as anonymous stories from Russian-language sources that had subsequently been picked up by other publications, claiming that this was "a very Soviet practice".

The film to be screened in Venice, explains the Kyiv Independent, is said to be closer to Khrzhanovsky’s original vision, and includes scenes shot between 2008 and 2011 alongside more recent footage.

The project has also come under scrutiny from the Russian authorities: in 2020, the Russian Ministry of Culture accused "Dau" of being "pornographic propaganda", allegations which the director described as "ridiculous and absurd".

The Russian film director is no stranger to this sort of controversy. In 2020, he was appointed artistic director of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre in Kyiv, a decision that sparked controversy, partly due to the Russian oligarchs linked to the project as funders. At the time, Khrzhanovsky had envisaged an ‘immersive’ approach for the memorial, which provoked indignant reactions within Ukrainian and international cultural circles.

“Dau” was funded by the Russian entrepreneur Sergei Adoniev, who was subject to US sanctions in 2023 and Ukrainian sanctions in 2022: according to the Ukrainian sanctions database, one of his companies provides communications services to the Russian army. In 2019, Khrzhanovsky himself told The Guardian that Adoniev had given him around 25 million euros, whilst leaving him free to carry out the project as he saw fit.

Among the film’s leading figures is the conductor Teodor Currentzis, who was granted Russian citizenship by presidential decree in 2014. His orchestra, MusicAeterna, has received financial support from entities linked to the Russian state, including VTB Bank, which is subject to Western sanctions.

In its statement, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarified that criticising projects such as "Dau" does not amount to calling for censorship, but rather serves as a reminder of how Russia uses culture as a weapon. The Ministry also made a direct appeal to the organisers: it called on the Venice Film Festival and the international cultural community to recognise how Russia is turning culture into a tool of its hybrid war, and to stop treating cultural projects backed by the Kremlin as politically neutral. “It should also be emphasised,” reads the statement, which was subsequently also released by the Ukrainian Embassy in Italy, “that ‘DAU’ was filmed in Kharkiv between 2008 and 2011, but the Ukrainian city is portrayed in the film exclusively through a Soviet lens, without taking into account its history and identity. Such an approach reflects the very same imperial narrative model that Russia continues to impose through its war of aggression against Ukraine.”

This controversy comes just a few months after another, again linked to Russia’s presence at cultural events in Venice: last spring, Russia made a highly contentious return to the Venice Art Biennale, with a pavilion curated by a commissioner with close ties to the Russian military-industrial complex and featuring works by artists known for their support of the war effort.