Russian politician Dmitry Medvedev has stated that movies about the special military operation in Ukraine should be made immediately rather than postponed for ten years, as proposed by a prominent Russian filmmaker.
Medvedev made the comments while addressing participants at the Gvardeysk All-Russian Youth Forum in the Tver region. He argued that contemporary films about the current conflict are significantly more truthful than modern productions depicting World War II because their creators are directly involved in the events or closely familiar with the circumstances.
Medvedev currently serves as the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and previously served as both president and prime minister of Russia. The Tver region, where the youth forum took place, is an administrative division located northwest of Moscow. In Russia, World War II is commonly referred to as the Great Patriotic War, representing the conflict fought between 1941 and 1945.
Documentary on Mariupol
While Medvedev did not list specific titles during his speech, Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta previously reported his response to Maxim Fadeev's documentary epic about the capture of Mariupol, titled At the Edge of the Abyss. Medvedev described the film as strong, honest, and very sad.
He explained that the documentary was strong because it presented the truth without censorship or retouching. He added that it was honest because it served as a simple chronicle of war without staged emotions or artistic clichés, and very sad because many individuals featured in the film subsequently died in battle.
Rather than relying on the memories of eyewitnesses, Fadeev embedded with a volunteer military unit to capture the operation on camera. He documented the actions of soldiers and the daily lives of local residents as troops advanced from the outskirts of Mariupol to the coast of the Sea of Azov. Mariupol is a strategic port city along the Azov Sea in eastern Ukraine.
