Screening of Navalny

Monday, February 26

Screening of Navalny

The Segal Theatre

365 5th Ave. @ 34th St.

Free and open to the public

4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Screening of Navalny (2022)

Local @ Segal Center only

Detailing the 2020 assassination attempt of Russian opposition leader and former presidential candidate Alexei Navalny, in which he was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent. A film by Daniel Roher. Winner, Best Documentary Feature 2023, Academy Award.

Stick around for our later offerings: 

6:00 pm - 6:30 pm

Milo Rau on Navalny

Live Zoom @ Segal Center + Streaming on Howlround

Swiss theater director and current Wiener Festwochen artistic director Milo Rau will talk about meeting Alexei Navalny during the making of his The Moscow Trials and about creating art in times of social and political conflict.

6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Screening of The Moscow Trials (2014)

@ Segal Center + Streaming on Howlround

In the summer of 2012, the punk activists of Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in a penal colony for their performance in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the world reacted with widespread protest rallies.Yet this was only the latest episode in a ten-year series of show trials of artists and dissidents, staged by Putin’s system to prevent any form of democratic change.

Milo Rau stages his own show trial in this documentary film. "Art” faces up against “religion”; “dissident” Russia against “true” Russia. There are no actors on stage; instead there are the protagonists of real, political life: professional lawyers, a constitutional judge, witnesses and experts of all political shades. In the style of a courtroom drama with an open end, cross-examinations, summations and disputes on the sidelines of the trial will bring about a disturbing and conflicting image of today’s Russia: are Putin’s cultural policies violating freedom of opinion and human rights? Or is it indeed art which is violating the feelings of believers? Who is the offender, who is the defender? A randomly selected lay court, made up of six Moscow residents, will reach a verdict after three days. For or against the artists; for or against Putin.

Milo Rau is regarded by many as the most significant politically engaged theatre director working today, following in the footsteps of Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator. More about Milo Rau here. To read more about this piece and Milo Rau's International Institute of Political Murder, click here.

The Moscow Trials will be streamed live in full on Howlround. One time only - not archived!