Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny was a far cry from the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles when a film about him won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature on Sunday night.
But he learned of the honor for the “Navalny” doc on Monday while locked in solitary confinement more than 100 miles east of Moscow, according to his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh.
She said the 46-year-old activist’s lawyer let him know he’d been celebrated at one of the most prestigious events in the free world hours earlier, though there was no word of his reaction.
Director Daniel Roher thanked the Academy on Navalny’s behalf. Quoting the imprisoned activist, he condemned “Vladimir Putin’s unjust war of aggression in Ukraine.”
Navlany is said to be awaiting a hearing in the city of Kovrow, where he filed a complaint against prison officials. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he couldn’t comment on “Navalny” because he hadn’t seen the film.
The 2022 documentary details Navalny’s resistance to Putin’s tyranny, which resulted in a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security prison. He may have wound up in the 95th annual Academy Awards In Memoriam segment had a 2020 attempt to poison him been successful. Russia denied involvement in the incident, for which Navalny and Western intelligence agencies blame the Kremlin.
Russian state-run television largely ignored the Academy’s recognition of “Navalny.”
The political prisoner’s wife and daughter attended Sunday night’s award ceremony. Yulia Navalnaya told her husband to ”stay strong” while in prison for “defending democracy.”
“Navalny” got the nod over “All That Breathes,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Fire of Love” and “A House Made of Splinters” to win its Academy Award.