Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from my Heart Radio. When Russian opposition leader and
Speaker 1: fierce Putin critic Alexey Navalny fell violently ill on a
Speaker 1: flight in August of two twenty, it was suspected he
Speaker 1: was poisoned by Novachuk, a Soviet era nerve agent. He
Speaker 1: was medically evacuated to Berlin and fell into a coma,
Speaker 1: but miraculously survived. My guests today, filmmaker Daniel Roar and
Speaker 1: investigative journalist Christo Grotzev, were at the center of the
Speaker 1: unfolding drama that resulted in the gripping documentary naval Me.
Speaker 1: The film documents the quest to identify those responsible for
Speaker 1: the poisoning and the plight of Alexey Navalny, whose anti
Speaker 1: corruption platform landed him in a Russian prison where he
Speaker 1: remains to this day. More poisoned. Putn't supposed to be
Speaker 1: not so stupid to use this navy chalk. If you
Speaker 1: want to kill someone, just shoot him. Jesus christ, It's
Speaker 1: impossible to believe it. It's kind of stupid. The whole
Speaker 1: idea of poisoning with a chemical weapon. What the fuck.
Speaker 1: This is why this is so smart, because even reasonable people,
Speaker 1: they refused to believe like what come on poisoned seriously.
Speaker 1: Prior to Navalny, Daniel Roar directed the feature documentary Once
Speaker 1: We're Brothers Robbie Robertson and the Band about the rock group.
Speaker 1: He also shot and directed several short docks and has
Speaker 1: been nominated for multiple Canadian Screen Awards. Roar has been
Speaker 1: developing his craft since a young age. He spent a
Speaker 1: year at scared the Savannah College of Art and Design,
Speaker 1: but found his passion in a high school film class
Speaker 1: at the Tobaco School of the Arts in Toronto. We
Speaker 1: had this fabulous film teacher. He was like a sort
Speaker 1: of coromogene e cool nice guy and he was very
Speaker 1: same Mr Johnson Kevin, and uh I was. He had
Speaker 1: this film class, and so I had a little cohort
Speaker 1: of film friends. We called ourselves the Man Clan, and
Speaker 1: the joke was we were not manly at all. We
Speaker 1: were a bunch of film nerds and we would just
Speaker 1: This was when DSLRs became a thing, So about ten
Speaker 1: years ago or fifteen years ago, you could buy a
Speaker 1: little DSLR for seven or eight hundred dollars and you
Speaker 1: could get a shallow depth of field, an image that
Speaker 1: looked like a movie. And to me, at seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: that was revelatory. And so my friends we'd run around Toronto.
Speaker 1: We we once had the subway system shut down by
Speaker 1: accident setting off smoke alarms. My dad still gives me
Speaker 1: a hard time for the time I set off the
Speaker 1: smoke alarm in his house when we were seventeen or eighteen.
Speaker 1: But being creative, making movies, making things, and it all
Speaker 1: started for me in in a tobacoa fabulous school that
Speaker 1: I was able to attend when I was a teenager.
Speaker 1: And when you went to SCAD because I love SCAT
Speaker 1: and SCATS like a lot of these schools who over
Speaker 1: the arc of my lifetime, you know, many decades now
Speaker 1: they have you know, raised the money and grown so significantly.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know SCAD, when you go down there
Speaker 1: to Savannah, they've taken over half the town. You know,
Speaker 1: every available building they bought and have incorporated into that program.
Speaker 1: And you went there for just one year and not
Speaker 1: even a full year. I went there for about a year. Um,
Speaker 1: I was in Savannah for one year and amazing place,
Speaker 1: super cool talent. I'm not a school guy, and it
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with that school. It's just that
Speaker 1: no matter what Kevin Johnson imparted to you know, you
Speaker 1: were done. I was finished. Kevin Johnson mic drop. That
Speaker 1: was it with keV. That that was it. I learned
Speaker 1: everything you needed to know from Kevin. From Kev's film class. Mr.
Speaker 1: Johnson's film class, I learned everything I needed to know.
Speaker 1: And I decided that I wanted to make documentaries and
Speaker 1: the best way to do that would be to just
Speaker 1: make documentary. Why documentaries? Documentaries where this art form that
Speaker 1: for me existed at the confluence of all these things
Speaker 1: I was interested in. I was very curious about traveling
Speaker 1: and seeing the world in history and art and culture
Speaker 1: and filmmaking, cinematography, editing, but also music and drawing, animation, painting.
Speaker 1: For your parents in the arts they had, they were
Speaker 1: in retail, the Schmata business. My mom and dad had
Speaker 1: a clothing store called Higher Ground and Higher Ground for
Speaker 1: Kids in Toronto for about thirty thirty five years, and
Speaker 1: so my dad sold out aware like North Faced Patagonia, Archaracs, Canada,
Speaker 1: Goose and so we were always the spirit of travel
Speaker 1: was something that we was always imparted onto. My brother
Speaker 1: and I would go on canoe trips in Algonquin Park
Speaker 1: as as as teenagers and as kids, and so I
Speaker 1: always had the sense of traveling and getting out into
Speaker 1: the world was something really important and valuable. And and
Speaker 1: my dad has a bunch of corny phrases that he
Speaker 1: always says that are just foundational to my life, and
Speaker 1: one of them is travel off the beaten path. And
Speaker 1: certainly that's the choice I chose when I dropped out
Speaker 1: of school and tried to pursue other things. Now the
Speaker 1: film is out. The film is going to be released
Speaker 1: in eight cinemas around the US on April eleven and twelve.
Speaker 1: And this is obviously extraordinarily exciting for all of us.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of screens for a doc and and
Speaker 1: certainly Warner Brothers, who were so grateful is distributing the film,
Speaker 1: understands the critical mission of getting this film out now
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. When did you first become aware
Speaker 1: of navalmy I've been aware of NAVALNY for a few
Speaker 1: years now, just because I'm I'm interested in Russia and
Speaker 1: Russian politics and geopolitics is something that I'm interested in
Speaker 1: and and if you're in the West and you're interest
Speaker 1: in Russia and Navalny's name is unavoidable. But certainly my
Speaker 1: interest in him peaked in the summer of when news
Speaker 1: circled around the world that he had been poisoned. And
Speaker 1: I remember vividly this three day struggle when he was
Speaker 1: in this hospital in Siberia and the authorities weren't letting
Speaker 1: him leave, and there was this weird behavior happening, and
Speaker 1: something strange was going on, a weird thing, that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't let him go, they wouldn't let him go to Germany,
Speaker 1: and eventually they did. They relented. He he was in
Speaker 1: there a little longer. I think. I think, so sink
Speaker 1: in or fade out. Um the German couldn't detect and
Speaker 1: so um. That was in my consciousness. At no point
Speaker 1: did it ever cross my mind at that stage that oh,
Speaker 1: I should go make a movie about this guy. It
Speaker 1: never would have entered my my plane of reality. Well,
Speaker 1: it just I was sitting in Toronto painting an apartment.
Speaker 1: I just didn't occur to me. It wasn't until I
Speaker 1: was sitting next to this man, Crystal Grozev, who's here
Speaker 1: with us today that I thought, oh, maybe we should
Speaker 1: go make a film about this, Maybe we should go
Speaker 1: pursue that. This is the same way with all of
Speaker 1: even your earlier shorter films. You do the one about
Speaker 1: sex abuse, but from the priest stuff up in the
Speaker 1: indigenous people's prolific sex offender and Canadian history. As I made,
Speaker 1: the name of the film is Survivors, Row Survivors because
Speaker 1: his name is Row. The man's name is Ralph Roe,
Speaker 1: who was the Anglican minister that had this little prop
Speaker 1: plane and he would fly up to these communities and
Speaker 1: everyone adored him. He was like this this whizard missionary
Speaker 1: fly in and everyone thought it was great. And he'd
Speaker 1: take the kids on camp trips, but only the boys.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that he was one of the
Speaker 1: most insidious criminals in Canadian history. Was he abused hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of boys. And so I, when I was
Speaker 1: one or twenty two, made a short film with this
Speaker 1: extraordinary film producer in Toronto called Peter O'Brien, and we
Speaker 1: made a film about this man's crimes. Was in his
Speaker 1: idea and he hired you two directors right when when
Speaker 1: I was twenty one, and uh, that that film made
Speaker 1: a little bit of noise. People saw it, and I
Speaker 1: think it was very significant as a tool for the
Speaker 1: community to heal and and have and have that um
Speaker 1: but it was, you know, very challenging, and we've since
Speaker 1: entered a different place in Canada. I don't know that
Speaker 1: that's a film I would have directed now. I think
Speaker 1: that we would be much better suited finding one of
Speaker 1: the many indigenous filmmakers to tackle that story. But in
Speaker 1: that moment you feel sensitive about that, well, very much,
Speaker 1: of course, absolutely. I think now it's very important we
Speaker 1: have to think about who gets to tell what story.
Speaker 1: When I made that movie, I had no consciousness of
Speaker 1: that That's not something that was on my radar. It
Speaker 1: was only years later later that I reflected on it
Speaker 1: and questioned whether or not I was the right guy
Speaker 1: to tell that story. And the film was successful and
Speaker 1: I think the community was appreciative that I made it.
Speaker 1: But I think now I would I would really question that,
Speaker 1: and I would really seek community consultation. It's complicating to
Speaker 1: note that you're you know, when you talk about your
Speaker 1: career in the brief minutes we've been talking now, you
Speaker 1: lose sight of the fact of how young you are,
Speaker 1: you know, so it was we we tell the audience
Speaker 1: that you're twenty nine years old, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: He's go on Hollywood football now he's full flag Hollywood now,
Speaker 1: the twenty eight year old Daniel. You don't realize that
Speaker 1: you have been doing this for years now and this
Speaker 1: inclusivity diversity thing has unfolded most vividly during those ten years,
Speaker 1: during your career, your lifetime. Absolutely, and especially in Canada,
Speaker 1: our consciousness about the vital necessity of which communities get
Speaker 1: to tell which stories has has really come to the front.
Speaker 1: It's something that I'm mindful of, as you know, a
Speaker 1: Jewish kid that grew up in Toronto. It's something that
Speaker 1: I really have to think about. My view was, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's the success of an individual filmmaker's career leads
Speaker 1: them to where they are today. There's films you're making
Speaker 1: now that people are benefiting from their learning about the world.
Speaker 1: Documentary films can often be the beachhead for people to
Speaker 1: understand the topic, to understand events in history beyond books
Speaker 1: and beyond classroom learning. Documentaries have become tools for learning.
Speaker 1: And I say to myself, the guy that's directing Navalny.
Speaker 1: Let's let's be grateful for his roots and how he
Speaker 1: got to where he has. But anyway, I'd like to
Speaker 1: just shift for a second, because we do have our
Speaker 1: other guests here. Crystal Grozev. You sit there and you
Speaker 1: see that Navalny is going to come back to Moscow,
Speaker 1: and you go, why why does he come back to Moscow?
Speaker 1: Knowing he must have known what the potential was. He
Speaker 1: seems to be being charged with embezzlement all the time,
Speaker 1: and and and the charges dropped, and he runs from
Speaker 1: mayor and gets the vote, which is significant but not
Speaker 1: anything earth shattering. But he but he's got a political following.
Speaker 1: I want you to take me through this line of
Speaker 1: right before he's poisoned, where is he, what he's doing.
Speaker 1: We're gonna try you for embezzlement, and then we suspend,
Speaker 1: we don't do this, we don't do this, and then
Speaker 1: we poison you. Take me through what's going on with
Speaker 1: Putin the Russians in Navani before he's going to get poisoned. Well,
Speaker 1: what we found out actually is that they tried to
Speaker 1: poison him years earlier. So they started tailing him. This
Speaker 1: whole unit of the Russian security service to the FSB
Speaker 1: that comprises not only political police like the scary muscle guys,
Speaker 1: but also chemical weapons specialists within the FSB and doctors
Speaker 1: within the FSB. Saw a killed team, a poisoned team.
Speaker 1: They started telling him the moment he announced his bid
Speaker 1: for the presidency that was in two thousand seventeen, and
Speaker 1: they tailed him on a total of sixty six trips
Speaker 1: around the country throughout his whole campaign. So every little
Speaker 1: village we visited, they were there. They stayed in hotels
Speaker 1: near him. They usually arrived just ap of hours before
Speaker 1: he arrived or were left just after he left. So
Speaker 1: they were there waiting for a sign off from apparently
Speaker 1: putting for him to be whacked, to be killed. But
Speaker 1: this didn't come for years, or maybe it did come.
Speaker 1: What they don't know is maybe they tried. But Moscow
Speaker 1: four is the phrase that comes out in this film,
Speaker 1: and people who see it will know that it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a sort of a cold word for Russia's
Speaker 1: incompetence at the official level. So it could be that
Speaker 1: they tried earlier to poison him but didn't work out.
Speaker 1: So the only thing we see is that in July,
Speaker 1: just a month and a half before the actual Coma poisoning,
Speaker 1: the same team followed him and his wife to their
Speaker 1: getaway to a Baltic coast in Russia, in the in
Speaker 1: the Clino Gradkneberg, and apparently they tried to poison them
Speaker 1: there again because we see his wife falling almost into
Speaker 1: a comma because she experienceds similar symptoms to what he
Speaker 1: did them on the wrong people eating the custard. Is
Speaker 1: that the problem with the KGB or the FSP, Well,
Speaker 1: they're just not great at poisoning. They're not they're not great,
Speaker 1: I mean they but they try again when they have.
Speaker 1: What they lose in competence, they make up in resilience,
Speaker 1: So they do it. The years later, they keep trying,
Speaker 1: They keep trying. They tried it twice on another politician
Speaker 1: who lives here, actually Vladimir Kamos up same poison tis here.
Speaker 1: They poisoned him there, he came back here because his
Speaker 1: family lives here. He decided to go back for a
Speaker 1: campaign trips. Six months later poisoned him again. So they tried.
Speaker 1: They tried many times, not just once. So why that
Speaker 1: moment in time, It's the wrong question, because maybe they
Speaker 1: tried for four years and that was just the one
Speaker 1: time that they made enough sort of dozeage into get
Speaker 1: into his bloodstream by essentially smearing his underpants. That's what happened.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I went in through him through his
Speaker 1: lower body parts. So he goes to Berlin. He finally
Speaker 1: gets out of there and goes to Germany to get
Speaker 1: treated and he's cured. Navalni, as I see him on
Speaker 1: screen and Daniel's film is crisp and sharp and alert
Speaker 1: and bright eyed and doesn't seem impaired in anyway as
Speaker 1: a figure in the film. And then he it's cured
Speaker 1: and he comes back again. Yeah, Like, like who around
Speaker 1: him is counseling him? Who is advising him that you
Speaker 1: could stay here and be the leader of an opposition,
Speaker 1: You could tour the world and be the darling of
Speaker 1: the Western world. Very few people would command the same
Speaker 1: resources that Navalni commanded in raising money. He could be.
Speaker 1: It could be like the Clinton Foundation, his foundation and
Speaker 1: raising money for his activities. He could be. He's very
Speaker 1: charismatic and he could carry on his great work. Instead,
Speaker 1: he decides to go home and they put him in
Speaker 1: prison for night. Why does he go home? Why, Well,
Speaker 1: you're preaching to the choir. You're asking the same questions
Speaker 1: that I asked him, And I asked that his why?
Speaker 1: He looked at me, like, I'm an idiot? How can
Speaker 1: you ask this question? If I stay here, I just
Speaker 1: become one of the many talking heads that just talk
Speaker 1: to Russians from outside of Russia, and Russians would never
Speaker 1: trust me. Russians would never believe him unless I had
Speaker 1: partaken the daily in their daily misery. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: that people offered him an effective and compelling argument to
Speaker 1: the contrary. I mean, there's a lot of great work
Speaker 1: you could do. What are you gonna be able to
Speaker 1: accomplish from jail for nine years? And then they have
Speaker 1: you that they're going to kill you there? Probably exactly
Speaker 1: we got to that conversation and basically says, you're right.
Speaker 1: If I were a journalist, If I were journalists, I
Speaker 1: would stay here and continue, probably doing a better job
Speaker 1: from here than from there. But I want to be
Speaker 1: a politician. I want to be president one day, and
Speaker 1: I can only do it from there, from prison. From well,
Speaker 1: I asked him, do you realize that you're going to prison?
Speaker 1: He says yes. I asked him, do you think it's
Speaker 1: going to be for a couple of months. He said, no, Christo,
Speaker 1: we don't get it. It It will be years. So he
Speaker 1: was completely open eyed about it. And I asked his wife,
Speaker 1: does she realize that this is going to happen? She
Speaker 1: said absolutely, so, it's a different type of complex could be,
Speaker 1: could be? But what is your opinion? Why did he
Speaker 1: go back? I mean, I'm sure you share some of
Speaker 1: the same opinions he does. I think fundamentally, what Alexei
Speaker 1: was not comfortable with was the idea and notion of instructing,
Speaker 1: of telling, encouraging the Russian people to take to the streets,
Speaker 1: to go up against the regime, to risk getting arrested.
Speaker 1: He was not comfortable saying those things, commanding those things,
Speaker 1: encouraging those from a Parisian hotel, from a Parisian hotel,
Speaker 1: from Ville, news from Berlin, from Vienna. If you want
Speaker 1: to be the moral leader of a nation, which is
Speaker 1: the role he currently occupies, talk is cheap. You have
Speaker 1: to be shoulder the shoulder, and you have to be there.
Speaker 1: And I think that what he is doing, his courage
Speaker 1: and bravery, hopefully will be an inspiration to the Russian people.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why he went back. But is
Speaker 1: it something that we grapple with and struggle with to
Speaker 1: this day. Absolutely, was it the right decision? I don't know,
Speaker 1: but that was between Alexey Navalny and his higher power,
Speaker 1: and that's the decision he made, and his family's lockstep
Speaker 1: with him. But it's obviously something that we struggled with.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I remember I was making the movie,
Speaker 1: and I was hoping that we would get some sort
Speaker 1: of uncertainty, some semblance of insecurity about the decision or
Speaker 1: the process. The veneer of fear. The man's constitution was ironclad.
Speaker 1: He never let on that he was afraid. He'd say, oh,
Speaker 1: Daniel Jesus Christ, of course I have to go back.
Speaker 1: What am I going to do sit in Germany? Forget it?
Speaker 1: But I would imagine, I understand what you're saying. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand his commitment, but I wonder if it's going
Speaker 1: to be easier to poison him. I mean, is he
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. In the United States, we live in a
Speaker 1: place where people are fatigued by scandal, they are fatigued
Speaker 1: by by what I call the conspira noiak mentality. Well,
Speaker 1: I would not be comfortable equivocating the Volni with Epstein
Speaker 1: for obvious reason. No, no, no, But I'm saying in
Speaker 1: terms of he's he's a sitting duck in a prison.
Speaker 1: Get the guy in prison. If you want to whack
Speaker 1: and put him in prison. You know where he is.
Speaker 1: You control his movements. He is in the cutsody of
Speaker 1: the same man who tried to murder him. Christa, what
Speaker 1: do you think, Well, just remember that what happened to
Speaker 1: the previous guys that tried to murder him. They're dead
Speaker 1: now or one of them is most likely, right, the
Speaker 1: guy that, yes, the guy that the ones that failed
Speaker 1: so that they kill you. Well, basically they said, have
Speaker 1: you sit down with the bowl of poison? So why
Speaker 1: would the new guys trying to say to you give
Speaker 1: me that poison left? Do you remember the scene, the
Speaker 1: Marquee scene in our film when Alexey eight makes a
Speaker 1: few phone calls I guess an extraction of confession, Remember
Speaker 1: that part. I don't want to ruin the film from now.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's drama in this film, unlike any other
Speaker 1: doc I've seen in recent memory. Well, so we know
Speaker 1: that some of the individuals who were fooled, well, The
Speaker 1: whole point is there was a set of FSB officers
Speaker 1: who had given the task to kill Navalni. They failed,
Speaker 1: but they lived in with the belief that their government,
Speaker 1: their president, their crook president, will protect them from publicity,
Speaker 1: from that publicity, from neighbors taking revenge on them. That
Speaker 1: didn't work out. These guys that tried to kill them
Speaker 1: are now negative celebrities. They all of Russian knows their faces.
Speaker 1: Their neighbors spray painted their their elevator with like our
Speaker 1: our neighbor is a killer. Because they were fact totals
Speaker 1: of the because they were murderous emissaries of this government,
Speaker 1: or because they're actual fans of Navalni or both. No,
Speaker 1: because the neighbors actually didn't realize that the government is
Speaker 1: a government of murderers, that their neighbors that work, they
Speaker 1: didn't realize that there were Russians who don't realize that
Speaker 1: Putin is an Ardus. Yes, we're gonna go. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get that in a second. And I do want to
Speaker 1: put a button on what you said. You're very right,
Speaker 1: I did. By no means that I mean to be
Speaker 1: equivocate Epstein with a Navalny for obvious reasons, But I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that that seems to be the key. You
Speaker 1: want to get somebody in prison, because then you have
Speaker 1: complete control over where they go, what they do. There's
Speaker 1: more opportunities to kill them. So he wants to be
Speaker 1: a part of things. He's willing to suffer. He's willing
Speaker 1: to take on the horrible consequences to come back and
Speaker 1: one day hopefully get out of prison. Do people view
Speaker 1: Nivalny as a viable political candidate if he wasn't in prison,
Speaker 1: if they weren't trying to poison him all the time?
Speaker 1: Does he have any chance to become the president of Russia?
Speaker 1: I think he does. For years, the people who doubted
Speaker 1: him were twofold. One of one part of Russia that
Speaker 1: didn't like him were fed with propaganda deities, an embezzler,
Speaker 1: so they just alway just a crow that just wants
Speaker 1: to get some of the government money. And another part
Speaker 1: thought that he is a government proxidy, that he's actually
Speaker 1: a fake full position figure, that he's very venient for
Speaker 1: for Putin because straw man, because it's strawman that doesn't
Speaker 1: have a chance to get into the presidency. Therefore he's
Speaker 1: an easy one. But after the poisoning and especially after
Speaker 1: the film, and honestly, any Russian who's seen the film
Speaker 1: sees him as a viable presidential candidate. And that's why
Speaker 1: I think this film has a big future for changing
Speaker 1: minds and hearts in Russia. And that's why I think
Speaker 1: and I know that Putin is so upset with the film,
Speaker 1: not with the investigation so much, not with Navandi so much,
Speaker 1: but with the film because people who see the film
Speaker 1: see him as a valuable candidate. What did they say,
Speaker 1: navalni embezzled. I think they said that he stole donations
Speaker 1: from his from his foundation. But what we have to
Speaker 1: understand is they have a menu of stuff they just
Speaker 1: make up, like the Russian judicial system. That what do
Speaker 1: they accuse him? They accused him. I think there was
Speaker 1: taking money from profit he stole. Originally they said that
Speaker 1: he stole lumber and some sort of commodities, and then
Speaker 1: he stole money from the nonprofit. It's nonsense. He and
Speaker 1: he insulted a war veteran. That's a crime. Just weird,
Speaker 1: wacky whatever they can come up with things. And and
Speaker 1: he and and he was given suspended sentences for two
Speaker 1: of these inbeztlement charges. Why why didn't they dump him
Speaker 1: in the prison then, Well, the first time I think
Speaker 1: it was in twenty during his run for mayor of Moscow.
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to five years in prison. But the
Speaker 1: day of his sentence, tens of thousands of people came
Speaker 1: out to the streets in protest, and I think that
Speaker 1: rattled the regime and they said, we cannot we don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with So with the response in public
Speaker 1: is uh, full throated enough. If there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there making noise about him, I'm going to
Speaker 1: assume then on a public relations level, Navalny is a
Speaker 1: problem for Putin. Well, he is, But what changed with
Speaker 1: Navalni Navanni made it the big problem for Putin. His
Speaker 1: Putin had to take much more drastic measures after he
Speaker 1: returned from Germany than before. He had to silence the
Speaker 1: islands of free media completely. He had to crush the
Speaker 1: people coming through the streets with force, beat old women,
Speaker 1: drag young kids in hoards to to detention centers, and
Speaker 1: that closed a gap, that closed the valve. But but
Speaker 1: it actually allows the pressure to increase now because these
Speaker 1: people can go to the streets, but they have it
Speaker 1: inside them that this anger, so it's a problem for
Speaker 1: put in Daniel Roar and Crystal grot Sev. The subject
Speaker 1: of another Daniel Roar documentary was Robbie Robertson. Robertson was
Speaker 1: also a guest on Here's the Thing. Check out our
Speaker 1: episode with the legendary musician. We ended up recording the
Speaker 1: basement tapes. I don't know, there's something like a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty songs or something in the course of this.
Speaker 1: And what we would do is every day we would
Speaker 1: go to Big Pink, We'd have some coffee, play some checkers.
Speaker 1: Bob would write. He wrote on a typewriter, so he
Speaker 1: would type something up. We'd go down into the basement,
Speaker 1: grab everybody, grab whatever instrument was close. Might even not
Speaker 1: be the one you play anything. Because there was no rules.
Speaker 1: We'd sit on we'd mess around, play through a tune
Speaker 1: and we'd say, wow, that felt kind of good to hear.
Speaker 1: More of my conversation with Robbie Robertson go to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing dot org. After the break, Daniel Roar and
Speaker 1: Crystal Grote tell the story of how they convinced Alexei
Speaker 1: Navalny to allow his life to be filmed. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. The documentary
Speaker 1: film Navalny was shot prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Speaker 1: And while there is no shortage of condemnations to be
Speaker 1: leveled against the Kremlin, I wanted to know what they
Speaker 1: feel is the most significant criticism of Vladimir Poo and
Speaker 1: his regime. Well, it's corruption. It's really corruption. The one
Speaker 1: keyword that everybody in the understands is a driving away
Speaker 1: value from their daily life. They see the wealth of
Speaker 1: the elite that has nothing to do with with what
Speaker 1: a normal Western elite would have, and then a elite
Speaker 1: for people to understand in the timeline that elite began
Speaker 1: to accrue on a more concentrated level. Since when that's recent,
Speaker 1: isn't it in the last twenty years. Well, there's always
Speaker 1: been people who profit it from not like in this country,
Speaker 1: from war profit here, etcetera. But but but it seems
Speaker 1: to me like there's an oligarchical suffice here that's bigger. Now.
Speaker 1: Suffice it to say that the oldigarchicle layer our buddhis
Speaker 1: school Buddhis and Judo Buddhis and like college buds of Putin,
Speaker 1: so they came through him. They're actually holding does increased
Speaker 1: dramatically during Putin's really absolutely I think before that you
Speaker 1: didn't have as much of this. Well we had a
Speaker 1: couple of oligarchs and some of them, but not like now. Yes,
Speaker 1: so that that is the one criticism that is exploited
Speaker 1: by somebody like like Navali because it's easy to point
Speaker 1: out than as visible. And one of all the would
Speaker 1: say if you were here is that every single issue
Speaker 1: in Russia, it's it's foundation is in corruption, and if
Speaker 1: we can tackle corruption, we can start to heal the society.
Speaker 1: But out there's one thing I want to speak to Earlier,
Speaker 1: you asked Christo quite a pointed question, and that's whether
Speaker 1: or not Alexey actually has a reasonable chance of ever
Speaker 1: becoming president. And one thing I asked him the same question.
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, are you like delusional? Like how
Speaker 1: how is this actually gonna happen? And what he spoke
Speaker 1: to was the Moscow mayoral race and why that is
Speaker 1: an interesting case study is because he started that race
Speaker 1: with two percent of the vote. People didn't like them.
Speaker 1: They caricatured him as just a blogger, and some wacky
Speaker 1: Internet guy, and he finished with of the vote. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a fair election. There was malfeasance. He narrowly avoided
Speaker 1: a runoff, and I think the Kremlin, who let him
Speaker 1: run an election, was so nervous about his performance. He
Speaker 1: ran an American style campaign. He was kissing babies, knocking
Speaker 1: on doors in the subways, distributing literature, tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of volunteers. There has never been a political organization in
Speaker 1: Russia like that. They were afraid. I don't know if
Speaker 1: the guy will be president, but what I hope, at
Speaker 1: the very least is that he will have the chance
Speaker 1: to compete in the democratic election. Whether the Russian people
Speaker 1: elect him is up to their own agency, is up
Speaker 1: to the Russian electorate. I just hope, I dream for
Speaker 1: a future he can run in this country. You have
Speaker 1: people who voted for a candidate in two thousand and
Speaker 1: sixteen and again in two thousand and twenty. Who does
Speaker 1: what a lot of conservatives do, which is they give
Speaker 1: them a lot of predigested pablem about what the conditions
Speaker 1: are in this country. You know, that's what Fox News is.
Speaker 1: There's people that need their news pre digested. Is it
Speaker 1: the same in Putin's Russia. Is it like America? Meaning
Speaker 1: does this Putin enjoy the support like Trump of a
Speaker 1: massive number of poorly informed people. These are the lazy, informational,
Speaker 1: lazy people. They they are fine, which is getting their
Speaker 1: news from late night State TV, which is the equivalent
Speaker 1: of Fox here, which is pre masticated, pre pre chewed,
Speaker 1: and they don't have time, patients, or interest in getting more.
Speaker 1: This would be about sixty percent of the population. Another
Speaker 1: would be the people who always doubted everything and would
Speaker 1: consider both sides to any debate to be bad guys,
Speaker 1: because in Russia, that's how they grew up, being disappointed
Speaker 1: by the political elite through through centuries and then or
Speaker 1: the younger guys who are actually interested in information actively.
Speaker 1: What changed with the Navali poisoning and the protests after
Speaker 1: that is that this there was the disinterested. They actually
Speaker 1: became interested and they figured out finally that Putting is
Speaker 1: the bad guy here. But they were afraid to go
Speaker 1: out to the streets. So that but that's still progress,
Speaker 1: because that doesn't make them uninformed. They just made them
Speaker 1: makes them afraid. But the one other thing I want
Speaker 1: to speak to, which is piggy back and alf of
Speaker 1: what Crystal just said. I think it's true that a
Speaker 1: large majority of the country is being spoon fed this
Speaker 1: state media, but I don't think it is totally the
Speaker 1: agency of the people. It's like there's literally a vacuum
Speaker 1: of information. It's impossible to obtain if you're living in
Speaker 1: the middle of the country, if you're not saving and
Speaker 1: so absolutely, it's a totally different dynamics, a different dichotomy,
Speaker 1: and it just really needs to be understood that in
Speaker 1: Russia you cannot access other points of view, other information
Speaker 1: unless you're a super savvy person who knows how to
Speaker 1: use VPNs and who knows how to get around censorship.
Speaker 1: I disagree with it because even before this censorship was introduced,
Speaker 1: there were islands of free media there. You could get
Speaker 1: to Twitter, you could get to Facebook. People are just
Speaker 1: too lazy. The six people just don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: I want to note for our listeners, this is the
Speaker 1: first moment where Daniel and Questa are in disagreement. Let's
Speaker 1: mark this in the script. But this is what we
Speaker 1: always dream of on these shows. Now, how did you first?
Speaker 1: I mean, you investigated the poisoning and you did a
Speaker 1: lot of work writing about it and exposing the poisoning, correct,
Speaker 1: you know, without giving a company's secrets if you will,
Speaker 1: and proprietary information. How do you go about that? Like,
Speaker 1: how does that begin? How did how did that begin?
Speaker 1: For you describe in vague terms when you start calling
Speaker 1: it never starts with that investigation. It always starts with
Speaker 1: a previous investigation that you've learned something that you keep
Speaker 1: it at the back of your mind and it comes
Speaker 1: handed later. So what happened in this case? We investigated
Speaker 1: the poisoning of remember the Scriptles, the former Russian double
Speaker 1: spy who went to to the UK and the Russian
Speaker 1: military intelligence tried to poison him with Novi schock in
Speaker 1: Salisbury in two thousand eighteen. So we had investigated this,
Speaker 1: we had cracked this crime. We found out where the
Speaker 1: poisoners had taken their physical poison, their Novi chock, and
Speaker 1: this turned out to be a particular institution in Russia.
Speaker 1: And we're not giving too much away, but it's a
Speaker 1: lab that we discovered and presumed is giving poison to
Speaker 1: anybody who needs it, like any government agency who's who
Speaker 1: wants to kill somebody gets the poison from there. So
Speaker 1: we decided to trace those guys from that institute, from
Speaker 1: that lab and see with whom they talked in the
Speaker 1: days before Navalny was poison And that's how we find
Speaker 1: and how do you find that? Well, that's the beauty
Speaker 1: of this crazy Russian corrupt system. Because Russia is corrupt
Speaker 1: and dictatorial. The government wants to have information on anybody
Speaker 1: at any given time, so they gather all this information
Speaker 1: on you, and that informations for saying that information is
Speaker 1: for sale because it's corb because Putin cannot survive if
Speaker 1: it doesn't allow his FSB under links to actually make
Speaker 1: money on on selling whatever. Some of them are vulnerable,
Speaker 1: some of them are probably like you exactly. They usually
Speaker 1: sell this to criminals. And suddenly here comes journalists who
Speaker 1: are it's taking a bit of the I've got these
Speaker 1: voicemails from Navalni. How much you want to give me
Speaker 1: the come on, two roubles, Come on, you're joking. But
Speaker 1: I had this literal conversation with one of the data
Speaker 1: traders who like getting this data from FSB officers and
Speaker 1: selling it. And when he found out that we are
Speaker 1: actually publishing investigations that he he wrote to me this
Speaker 1: angry email. He said I thought you you were just
Speaker 1: a criminal. You're a journalist. How dare you so? He
Speaker 1: was so upset. Yeah, so that's it's a corrupt system,
Speaker 1: and we exploited the corruption to at the data. Were
Speaker 1: you first met Navalny? Where we first met Navalny in
Speaker 1: the Black Forest, the small town called Saint Blasian in
Speaker 1: on the German French Swiss board And what was necessary
Speaker 1: described for us? I mean, you're a filmmaker and getting
Speaker 1: people to sit down with you in front of a
Speaker 1: camera sometimes that's a pretty herculean feat. Well, that's easy
Speaker 1: to get him in the room or not. That's the
Speaker 1: art of documentary filmmaking is getting in the rooms, being
Speaker 1: in the right place at the right time. Well, I
Speaker 1: think we had the best shot of anyone in the world.
Speaker 1: And the reason that was is we were writing on
Speaker 1: the coattails Christo. Christo came to me one day and
Speaker 1: I was there with my producer, Odessa Rae, one of
Speaker 1: the producers of the film, and Christo and I were
Speaker 1: working on another project that wasn't going well. Christo walks in,
Speaker 1: he says, there's something else and I was like, what's that? Christo?
Speaker 1: He says, you know that Navalny guy. I said, yeah.
Speaker 1: He says, I think I have a lead and who
Speaker 1: tried to poison him? And I go, who's making that movie? Chrystal?
Speaker 1: He goes, I don't know, should I ask? I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you should ask right now. And because of the word
Speaker 1: Crystal had done on the screen pall case, he cracked
Speaker 1: that very famous Russian poison story only a few years earlier.
Speaker 1: Navalny was receptive and Navonne understood that this is a
Speaker 1: guy to be taken seriously. So Crystal reached out. A
Speaker 1: week later, we were sneaking across the German Austrian border,
Speaker 1: which is closed because of the COVID. Where were you
Speaker 1: at the time? We were in Vienna? What were you
Speaker 1: doing there? We were in Vienna in limbo, waiting to
Speaker 1: see if we could go back to another recruited you
Speaker 1: into the the n s A. When you were you
Speaker 1: left scat after you're come on, who recruited you? Come on?
Speaker 1: I mean I just had you'd be in Vienna. You
Speaker 1: can't even joke about that, because the Russians are gonna
Speaker 1: take this interview. They're gonna take your voice saying that
Speaker 1: to me. They're gonna put it on state media and
Speaker 1: they're gonna say, look, here's the evidence alc Baldo knows
Speaker 1: that he works for the joking Vladimir, Literally, it's too late.
Speaker 1: They're gonna take this and they're no, watch it happened, Christas,
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen. You're gonna be on Russian state propaganda
Speaker 1: calling me a CIA asset, even though you were joking.
Speaker 1: This is how these Russians operate. They're like, oh, he
Speaker 1: works for the State Department. He works at the state
Speaker 1: They already said that, and so you joke. But it's
Speaker 1: like I'm here being like, well, they're going to use
Speaker 1: your voice calling me that was a joke. Vladimir on
Speaker 1: the thank you for specifying. I was in Vienna with
Speaker 1: Christo and Odesta. We were working on another project and
Speaker 1: in that former Soviet state it wasn't going well and
Speaker 1: I my life was spiraling. I was bugging out. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if I'd go back to Canada, if I'd
Speaker 1: stick around for a little bit longer. And then he
Speaker 1: walks in and magnificently says, what about Navoni? And a
Speaker 1: week later we were sitting across from Alexey and his
Speaker 1: chief chief investigator, Maria pev chick, and my job was
Speaker 1: to convince them why we needed to make a documentary,
Speaker 1: why we had to start right now. Krysto, what was
Speaker 1: your perspective on that first meeting. He wasn't buying it.
Speaker 1: He was like looking at this kid much younger. He
Speaker 1: didn't believe it, but he allowed to give him a chance.
Speaker 1: And the way we agreed with him is let's let's
Speaker 1: start rolling, and then we decided later because otherwise you're
Speaker 1: missing every moment every day not being recorded, and that's
Speaker 1: what sold the whole project in Navoni. And then a
Speaker 1: week later they were like best of friends, and it
Speaker 1: was I would say best. I have to as a filmmaker,
Speaker 1: I have to just maintain that that, you know, alexey
Speaker 1: Is is an easy guy to hang out with. We
Speaker 1: bonded over our wonkish love of politics and all of this,
Speaker 1: but it's still important that I maintain a critical eye.
Speaker 1: This is a guy who is controversial in his own way,
Speaker 1: who's a complicated and compelling figure, and his complications make
Speaker 1: him compelling. But he and I hit it off and
Speaker 1: we enjoyed spending time together, and I think that's part
Speaker 1: of the reason why we were able to mesh ourselves
Speaker 1: in his cohort so naturally, so quickly. Documentary filmmaker Daniel
Speaker 1: Roar and Belling Cat journalist Crystal grotzev. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Spotify
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Daniel Roar and Crystal Growths have recount the dramatic final
Speaker 1: moments with Navalni and his family before his heroic return
Speaker 1: to Russia. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. I asked Daniel Roar and Crystal Grotzep to
Speaker 1: speculate on what is next for Putin amidst the rumors
Speaker 1: of his ailing health. The important thing is that people
Speaker 1: at the top belief that he has cancer, and that
Speaker 1: makes him vulnerable, and that makes them unlikely to follow
Speaker 1: any order that he gives them that endangered their own longevity,
Speaker 1: political longevity. So this is why Putin is not the
Speaker 1: sort of all powerful dictator that he was a year ago.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that he may have cancer, and this is
Speaker 1: what matters. What did the people inside Russia, think who
Speaker 1: is his likely successor? Is someone teed up because with
Speaker 1: the Russians there's often a likely successor. You know what
Speaker 1: has being the strongest sort of strategic talking point of
Speaker 1: the Kremlin. There's no successor. If not putting, then who
Speaker 1: This is a phrase, the said phrase, it's a vacuum.
Speaker 1: That's why people have actually not looked for a success
Speaker 1: and have sort of embraced this willingness to be the
Speaker 1: president or that's are forever. I don't think the people,
Speaker 1: the regular people in the near future will decide who
Speaker 1: the successor's It's going to be still the oligarchs and
Speaker 1: the elite and the generals. And I wonder if at
Speaker 1: some point, because of this war, disagregious war, Navali doesn't
Speaker 1: become a more acceptable alternative to the oligarchs because at
Speaker 1: least with him, they know that he's going to tax
Speaker 1: them of their their wealth, but they're going to preserve
Speaker 1: their lifestyle. And we're putting there. They've lost everything. They
Speaker 1: are not invited to any party at at in London
Speaker 1: or in New York anymore. They can't travel and this
Speaker 1: will change if Navali comes to part well, Navali comes
Speaker 1: to power, I mean if Putting, I mean to take
Speaker 1: me through this, because I'm yearning to hear your take
Speaker 1: on this, which is that if let's say, theoretically put
Speaker 1: and drop dead tomorrow, then no chance in Navalni would
Speaker 1: become the president. Then they're not going to hold an election,
Speaker 1: are they. Well, it's going to be chaos and there
Speaker 1: will be somebody who comes in as an interim our guy.
Speaker 1: So what is Navalny's path to the presidency? Even post
Speaker 1: put What's going to happen is a fight internal domestic fight,
Speaker 1: strife among the different groups of the power of lead.
Speaker 1: Putting has made the only claim to fame that he has.
Speaker 1: He has been able to manage these different interests within
Speaker 1: the generals and within the FSB, and once he's gone,
Speaker 1: it will be a fight everybody's against everyone else. And
Speaker 1: this is what has happened in every Western, normal country,
Speaker 1: that is, that is the normal path to actual democracy,
Speaker 1: which just hasn't happened during Russia yet. So I think
Speaker 1: we're going to see a couple of years of terrible
Speaker 1: dictatorship by somebody else that will gradually go into a
Speaker 1: real election at some point. Why is poison the weapon
Speaker 1: of choice in these assassinations. So the first answer is
Speaker 1: that if it works, it is, and it's deniable, you
Speaker 1: don't discover it. Now, in this case, they discovered it,
Speaker 1: but it was not meant to be discovered. So it's
Speaker 1: just a heart attack, right. And the second answers, if
Speaker 1: it doesn't work, then it's so scary that it actually
Speaker 1: discourages the cent it's it's the worst way to die.
Speaker 1: You hear the shrieks that, the yells of that. You
Speaker 1: don't want to die like that, So they want them
Speaker 1: to suffer. They want yeah, exactly, So this is the
Speaker 1: chemical equivalent of dumb dumb bullets exactly. But it's not new.
Speaker 1: It's not something that put An invented, it's it inherited
Speaker 1: it from the KGB. They love this thing. You may
Speaker 1: remember sometimes it's untraceable, meaning someone's dead and you say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a heart attack, right, exactly. There was this Bulgarian
Speaker 1: journalist who was killed with a poisoned umbrella, remember in
Speaker 1: the seventies in London. That's what the KGP did. They
Speaker 1: prepared this umbrella with a little pellet that had something
Speaker 1: like novichok and he died. One of my favorite documentaries
Speaker 1: his assassins. We were talking about this before with the
Speaker 1: with the two women I believe are coached because they
Speaker 1: think they're on a game show, because they kill a
Speaker 1: brother by rub the poison in his eyes at the
Speaker 1: airport where they're presenting him with some game show surprise. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that that film assassins, which is absolutely numbing. But you think,
Speaker 1: but obviously poison is better than spattering somebody's head against
Speaker 1: the wall in a hotel, even with a silence. But
Speaker 1: the reality is, if you spatter someone's head against the
Speaker 1: wall in a hotel, then you have a as as
Speaker 1: one of the characters in the film says, a body
Speaker 1: with hole in it. That you have to explain. If
Speaker 1: Alexey died on that plane, as the Russian government intended,
Speaker 1: an autopsy would have been carried out by the criminalistics institute.
Speaker 1: The same guys school poisoned him. So it's really the
Speaker 1: perfect crime. Are either of you, are you worried about
Speaker 1: your own safety or were you ever worried about your
Speaker 1: own safety during the production of this film? Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: When you're sitting next to a standing next to Alexey
Speaker 1: and nov only who's the bravest man on the plane
Speaker 1: and his staff who are actually in danger. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't help but feel inspired by their courage and bravery.
Speaker 1: I think the Russians will continue to make efforts to
Speaker 1: discredit the film by coming after me. That's why I
Speaker 1: take it so seriously when we joke about the CIA
Speaker 1: recruitment stuff, because they they will literally take this and
Speaker 1: they will put it on Channel one and they will say, oh, look,
Speaker 1: here's the evidence. He's admitting it. He's he is from
Speaker 1: this agency or that agency, which is nonsense. So I'm
Speaker 1: more concerned about character assassination, you know, them uh, finding
Speaker 1: someone I've never met who said that it makes a
Speaker 1: horrible accusations about me, something like that. That's my concern.
Speaker 1: What do you think, Cristal No, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1: That will just go after your character. They'll probably send
Speaker 1: some nice girls to sleep with you. What are you
Speaker 1: gonna work on next? You're gonna do in a documentary
Speaker 1: about ABA one? I want I want to do something
Speaker 1: that is completely totally different. I have a few things
Speaker 1: in development that I'm apprehensive. I don't want to jink,
Speaker 1: so I'm apprehensive to talk about um. But the most
Speaker 1: documentaries I know have a bunch of pots on the stove. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to, you have to, but this one was
Speaker 1: so all consuming, and uh, it's this is a daunting
Speaker 1: one to follow up, as I'm sure you can imagine.
Speaker 1: But I want to make something very soon, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to be totally totally different. But I love making documentaries,
Speaker 1: so I hope I get to make another one now.
Speaker 1: Navalny was the last time you were in his sup pressence?
Speaker 1: When did you last seeking? I can tell you exactly.
Speaker 1: It was January seventeenth in Berlin, Germany, at about one
Speaker 1: thirty in the afternoon. This year, he got in, I filmed,
Speaker 1: I was shooting. He went to prison when filming on
Speaker 1: January seventeenth was the first day he was in car
Speaker 1: Sarty last year, and I filmed him saying that you
Speaker 1: see it in the film. He says goodbye to his colleagues,
Speaker 1: and then we walked downstairs to the car park where
Speaker 1: there are are cars, protective vehicles waiting for him. He
Speaker 1: gets in the car and I didn't I was working.
Speaker 1: I was shooting, so it's not like I could go
Speaker 1: say thank you for so nice to meet you. By
Speaker 1: He understood line you have to keep absolutely and he
Speaker 1: understood that, and I understood that. And as he was
Speaker 1: driving off, I gave him a nod and he gave
Speaker 1: me a nod back, and he was off and you
Speaker 1: never spoke to him. Nothing. Nothing. Well, you've done this
Speaker 1: amazing job, because you have. Certainly I'm not saying this
Speaker 1: to be kind, and I know, I'm I'm, I'm, I'm
Speaker 1: in a long line of people that are saying to you,
Speaker 1: what a remarkable and what a talented filmmaker you are
Speaker 1: thanking a remarkable job with this film showing the world
Speaker 1: who Navalny is, at least who we want to believe
Speaker 1: he is. I'm disappointed that he chose to go to prison.
Speaker 1: And although I understand the Victor and Casablanca kind of code,
Speaker 1: but your film is going to be for many people
Speaker 1: in this country their introduction and their first chance and
Speaker 1: an up close look at Navalny. And and that's something
Speaker 1: that we take very seriously, and it's it's very important
Speaker 1: to all of us as many people in the world
Speaker 1: see this film as possible. The reality is Alec that
Speaker 1: Alexey is in peril. He is in a very bad
Speaker 1: spot right now, and the way that you keep him
Speaker 1: alive is by keeping his name in the global consciousness.
Speaker 1: Is he allowed to have visitors in prison? He can
Speaker 1: see his wife and his daughter once every three months
Speaker 1: for an hour. This film is going to be widely
Speaker 1: available and everyone in the world needs to see it,
Speaker 1: and they need to tell their friends to see it.
Speaker 1: Alexey's life depends on it. Thank you both, Thank you,
Speaker 1: director Daniel Roar and journalist Christo grots of Navalny is
Speaker 1: currently in theaters around the world and will premiere on
Speaker 1: CNN TV in North America on April. This episode was
Speaker 1: produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeice, and Maureen Hoban. Our
Speaker 1: engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: is brought to you by iHeart Radio.