PARK CITY, UTAH – JANUARY 26: (L-R) Maria Pevchikh, Christo Grozev, Yulia Navalny and Daniel Roher attend the 2023 Sundance Film Festival “Navalny” Premiere at The Ray Theatre on January 26, 2023 in Park City, Utah. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Michael loccisano / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
LONDON, United Kingdom — A film about Russian dissident Alexei Navalny scooped the best documentary prize at Britain’s BAFTA cinema awards on Sunday, amid controversy over a key contributor being kept away from the ceremony.
Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, a long-time Kremlin critic, tweeted “wow” after the announcement in London, after saying he had been “banned” from attending in person.
The documentary’s producer Odessa Rae paid tribute to Grozev, who she said could not be at the glitzy ceremony due to “a public security risk”.
“He gave up everything to tell this story, and other stories that need to be told,” she told the audience.
Grozev, who is lead Russia investigator with the investigative website Bellingcat and is credited with having helped reveal a plot to kill Navalny, appears in the documentary.
But on Friday he tweeted that he had been “surprised to discover that my whole family and I have all been banned by British police from attending this weekend’s BAFTA awards”.
London’s Metropolitan police said only that “some journalists face the hostile intentions of foreign states whilst in the UK”. BAFTA said the safety of its guests and staff was a priority.
At the Directors Guild of America awards in Beverly Hills on Saturday, “Navalny” director Daniel Roher told AFP that Grozev had been “disinvited” from the BAFTAs.
“The Russians are trying to kill him,” said Roher. “He’s not allowed to go to Europe any more. It’s dramatically changed his life, changed his family’s life.”
The decision to keep Grozev away was “cowardly” and “profoundly disappointing,” the Canadian director added.
Investigative journalists should not be penalized when they “expose the lies and corruption and genocidal tendencies of (Russian President) Vladimir Putin’s mafia,” he said.
Navalny, Putin’s most prominent opponent, has been held for the past two years at a maximum-security prison outside Moscow after an embezzlement conviction.
Before that, he was poisoned with the Soviet-made nerve agent Novichok on a trip to Siberia in 2020 and has accused Putin of being behind the attack.