Slain Russian Journalist Politkovskaya's Story Retold In 'Tragically Timely' New Film

Written by Margret Johnston

WASHINGTON -- The production team of the new film Words Of War felt a jolt of excitement when a set designer’s search for props turned up a leather-bound day planner owned by someone who clearly felt a connection to the very story they were working on.

In part through its meticulous prop selection, producer Mark Maxey said, the film about Anna Politkovskaya will take audiences back to the early 2000s, when the late investigative journalist was doggedly pursuing stories about high-level corruption and rights abuses in Russia and its Chechnya region.

Before deciding how the planner would be used to make the offices of Novaya Gazeta look more authentic, set designer Crispian Sallis flipped it open to October 7, the day Politkovskaya was killed in 2006, and found that that its anonymous owner had pasted in a photo of the courageous journalist and her obituary. Maxey described the discovery as a “goose bump moment” that only served to validate his and the film’s other backers’ motivation to record her story.

Words of War will be marketed to distributors this week at the Cannes Film Festival, where its production team plans to sign multiple deals to get the movie into as many theaters as possible worldwide. Filmed in Latvia in late 2022 and early 2023, the movie centers on Politkovskaya’s trips to Chechnya during the wars there, her efforts to win the trust of the Chechen people to let her tell their story, and the government corruption she uncovered.

The film begins with gripping scenes of Politkovskaya’s poisoning in 2004 on a flight to North Ossetia, which borders Chechnya. The flight is diverted and she is rushed to a hospital, surviving the ordeal after her family and boss sneak her out when they discover the hospital staff had no record of Politkovskaya having been admitted.

The film goes on to document the conflict within her family over the risks she is taking and her relationships with her editor, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Dmitry Muratov. The producers originally wanted to film in Ukraine, but the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 changed that plan, and Latvia, whose architecture Maxey said is similar to that of Russia, made for a suitable -- and safe -- substitute. It even snowed at the right time to make the war scenes more authentic, he said.

Muratov, who was branded a “foreign agent” after winning the Nobel, is played by Irish actor Ciaran Hinds, while British actress Maxine Peake plays Politkovskaya. Audiences will be reminded that the journalist was killed in cold blood -- a murder that shocked the world and now ranks as one of the first in a long list of journalists, opposition politicians, and dissidents who have been poisoned, killed, or forced to leave the country since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.

Maxey and Miriam Segal, one of the film’s other producers, felt strongly that Politkovskaya’s life story deserved to be made into a movie before it is further overshadowed by the string of other deaths and the atrocities of the war in Ukraine. They say the arrests in Russia last year of American journalists Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal and Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL point to the prescience of the film.

Maxey told RFE/RL in a recent phone interview that the availability of the film now makes it “tragically timely” as the number of unlawfully detained journalists in Russia increases and as journalists in other parts of the world face more and more danger just for doing their job. The number of deaths, detentions, and intimidations is higher than many people realize, he said.

The goal this week at Cannes is to begin marketing efforts to reach a broad audience and raise awareness around that issue, Maxey said. The problem is not just a Russian issue but a global one that can be difficult to grasp until “you realize that corrupt leaders go after the journalists,” he said, and after they are killed or otherwise silenced no one knows about the corrupt leaders’ bad acts “because there’s no one there to report it.”

'This Is So Important'
Everyone involved in Words Of War felt strongly that it was important to tell her story now, Maxey said, connecting it with the plight of journalists like Gershkovich and Kurmasheva.

“Anna’s story is still very relevant and very real. Anna represents the best of all these people,” Maxey said. “For me personally, this is so important. Journalists should be able to report without fear of death or reprisal.”

Words of War's producers hope the film will be widely enough available so that anyone who wants to see it will be able to, including "resourceful" Russians who can bypass government censorship.

Though the film won’t be competing for a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Maxey and his team, which includes Sean Penn as executive producer, will screen the film as part of their efforts to draw as much attention to it as possible.

The marketing team is aware that they will have virtually no chance to seal a distribution deal for Russian cinemas because involvement would be a big risk for anyone inside Russia; Maxey said he believes anyone associated with the film in Russia would be jailed.

Politkovskaya was shot dead in an apartment building in Moscow. Two men were sentenced to life in prison and three others to long prison terms in 2014 for their involvement, but relatives, colleagues, and Western governments suspect that Russian authorities will never pinpoint or punish the masterminds of her killing because a thorough investigation would lead too close to Putin’s government or the Kremlin-backed leadership in Chechnya.

But Russians are “resourceful” when it comes to getting around government censorship, Maxey said, and the hope is that the film will be widely enough available that anyone who wants to see it will be able to.

Maxey added that a portion of the proceeds from the film will be donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which documents the killing of reporters around the world. In this way, Maxey said, Politkovskaya’s story will contribute to making the world safer for journalism.

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