The Toronto International Film Festival said Thursday it is suspending upcoming screenings of the controversial documentary Russians At War due to “significant threats to festival operations and public safety.”
The announcement came a day after TIFF stood by the film, which is helmed by a Russian-Canadian director and received Canadian public funding, amid growing backlash from the Ukrainian community and government officials for both Ukraine and Canada.
A large protest was held outside Tuesday’s debut screening and another was planned for Friday.
The protests were organized by Ukrainian-Canadian community leaders who have called the film “Russian propaganda” — a charge denied by the filmmaker and festival organizers — and called for government and criminal investigations and for TIFF to cancel screenings of the film.
“As a cultural institution, we support civil discourse about and through films, including differences of opinion, and we fully support peaceful assembly,” the statement from the festival said Thursday. “However, we have received reports indicating potential activity in the coming days that pose significant risk; given the severity of these concerns, we cannot proceed as planned.
“This is an unprecedented move for TIFF.”
The festival said it will pause screenings scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday but is committed to showing the film “when it is safe to do so,” adding organizers “believe this film has earned a place in our festival’s lineup.”
A spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service told Global News the decision to suspend the screenings were made by TIFF organizers “and was not based on any recommendation from Toronto Police,” who are not aware of any active threats.
“We were aware of the potential for protests and had planned to have officers present to ensure public safety,” the spokesperson said.
The film’s director, Anastasia Trofimova, spent seven months embedded with a Russian army battalion in eastern Ukrainian territory occupied by Moscow’s forces to make the film, which she says was done without the Russian government’s knowledge. She and her financial backers have said the film shows the soldiers losing faith in the fight and seeks to humanize the ordinary men caught up in Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian critics, as well as some Canadian MPs including Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, have denounced any attempts to portray the Russians in a sympathetic light and accused the filmmakers of “whitewashing” the Russian army’s crimes in Ukraine.
Two Canadian senators, Donna Dasko and Stan Kutcher, announced Thursday it had sent a letter to TIFF organizers calling for the film’s removal, suggesting TIFF “may not have known all the details related to how this film was made and the purpose for which it was made at the time of its selection.”
None of the officials who have spoken out against the film have indicated whether they have seen it in full.
The film’s producers, which includes Canadian Oscar nominee Cornelia Principe, called TIFF’s decision “heartbreaking” in a statement provided by the festival and condemned those who have spoken out publicly against Russians At War, including Freeland, Ukraine’s consul-general for Toronto Oleh Nikolenko and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
“Their irresponsible, dishonest, and inflammatory public statements have incited the violent hate that has led to TIFF’s painful decision,” the producers wrote. “This temporary suppression is shockingly un-Canadian.”
Nikolenko said in a brief statement on Facebook that he welcomed TIFF’s decision but did not address the alleged threats that led to it.
“This project has already done significant damage to the festival’s reputation and given Russia a chance to further undermine democracy,” he wrote.
Earlier Thursday, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress issued a statement calling for TIFF’s board of directors to resign, the suspension of government funding to the festival and for authorities to investigate if federal laws against advocating genocide were violated.
The group also didn’t address the alleged threats, telling Global News in a statement it will “continue to voice our protest” over TIFF’s intentions to show the film in the future. The protest planned for Friday will go ahead, it added.
Ukraine’s culture minister on Wednesday said he raised the possibility of “legal actions to combat propaganda” in a call with TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey.
TVO, Ontario’s public broadcaster, announced Tuesday it was pulling its support for the film amid growing scrutiny over the use of public funding and government grants in its production. It had stood by the film a day earlier, calling it “at its core an anti-war film” “made in the tradition of independent war correspondence.”
TVO used its funding allocation from the Canada Media Fund for the documentary. The Canada Media Fund receives money from both the federal government and Canadian broadcasters, which is then allocated back to those broadcasters for the creation of Canadian content.
The Canada Media Fund has stressed broadcasters make their own decisions on which projects to fund, without any input from the Canada Media Fund or the government, but said this week it was investigating the matter.
A spokesperson for Canadian Heritage declined to say if it would investigate the funding, instead stressing the CMF’s independence.
Trofimova has claimed she is at risk of criminal prosecution in Russia after filming its troops in occupied Ukrainian territory without Moscow’s approval, making claims her film is Russian propaganda “ludicrous.”
Ukraine has questioned those claims, citing her past work with the Russian state media company RT, and said she also violated Ukrainian law by entering Ukrainian territory.
Trofimova has said her work for RT was separate from the RT News division that has been banned from Canadian airwaves and whose employees have been indicted in the U.S. for allegedly spreading Russian propaganda and attempting to disrupt the upcoming American election.