Daniel Roher and Christo Grozev Tell the Story of “Navalny”

but miraculously survived. My guests today, filmmaker Daniel Roar and investigative journalist Christo Grotzev, were at the center of the unfolding drama that resulted in the gripping documentary naval Me. The film documents the quest to identify those responsible for the poisoning and the plight of Alexey Navalny, whose anti corruption platform landed him in a Russian prison where he remains to this day. More poisoned. Putn't supposed to be not so stupid to use this navy chalk. If you

want to kill someone, just shoot him. Jesus christ, It's impossible to believe it. It's kind of stupid. The whole idea of poisoning with a chemical weapon. What the fuck. This is why this is so smart, because even reasonable people, they refused to believe like what come on poisoned seriously. Prior to Navalny, Daniel Roar directed the feature documentary Once We're Brothers Robbie Robertson and the Band about the rock group. He also shot and directed several short docks and has

been nominated for multiple Canadian Screen Awards. Roar has been developing his craft since a young age. He spent a year at scared the Savannah College of Art and Design, but found his passion in a high school film class at the Tobaco School of the Arts in Toronto. We had this fabulous film teacher. He was like a sort of coromogene e cool nice guy and he was very same Mr Johnson Kevin, and uh I was. He had this film class, and so I had a little cohort

of film friends. We called ourselves the Man Clan, and the joke was we were not manly at all. We were a bunch of film nerds and we would just This was when DSLRs became a thing, So about ten years ago or fifteen years ago, you could buy a little DSLR for seven or eight hundred dollars and you could get a shallow depth of field, an image that looked like a movie. And to me, at seventeen years old, that was revelatory. And so my friends we'd run around Toronto.

We we once had the subway system shut down by accident setting off smoke alarms. My dad still gives me a hard time for the time I set off the smoke alarm in his house when we were seventeen or eighteen. But being creative, making movies, making things, and it all started for me in in a tobacoa fabulous school that I was able to attend when I was a teenager.

And when you went to SCAD because I love SCAT and SCATS like a lot of these schools who over the arc of my lifetime, you know, many decades now they have you know, raised the money and grown so significantly. And uh, you know SCAD, when you go down there to Savannah, they've taken over half the town. You know, every available building they bought and have incorporated into that program. And you went there for just one year and not

even a full year. I went there for about a year. Um, I was in Savannah for one year and amazing place, super cool talent. I'm not a school guy, and it has nothing to do with that school. It's just that no matter what Kevin Johnson imparted to you know, you were done. I was finished. Kevin Johnson mic drop. That was it with keV. That that was it. I learned everything you needed to know from Kevin. From Kev's film class. Mr. Johnson's film class, I learned everything I needed to know.

And I decided that I wanted to make documentaries and the best way to do that would be to just make documentary. Why documentaries? Documentaries where this art form that for me existed at the confluence of all these things I was interested in. I was very curious about traveling and seeing the world in history and art and culture and filmmaking, cinematography, editing, but also music and drawing, animation, painting. For your parents in the arts they had, they were

in retail, the Schmata business. My mom and dad had a clothing store called Higher Ground and Higher Ground for Kids in Toronto for about thirty thirty five years, and so my dad sold out aware like North Faced Patagonia, Archaracs, Canada, Goose and so we were always the spirit of travel was something that we was always imparted onto. My brother and I would go on canoe trips in Algonquin Park as as as teenagers and as kids, and so I always had the sense of traveling and getting out into

the world was something really important and valuable. And and my dad has a bunch of corny phrases that he always says that are just foundational to my life, and one of them is travel off the beaten path. And certainly that's the choice I chose when I dropped out of school and tried to pursue other things. Now the film is out. The film is going to be released in eight cinemas around the US on April eleven and twelve. And this is obviously extraordinarily exciting for all of us.

That's a lot of screens for a doc and and certainly Warner Brothers, who were so grateful is distributing the film, understands the critical mission of getting this film out now as quickly as possible. When did you first become aware of navalmy I've been aware of NAVALNY for a few years now, just because I'm I'm interested in Russia and Russian politics and geopolitics is something that I'm interested in and and if you're in the West and you're interest

in Russia and Navalny's name is unavoidable. But certainly my interest in him peaked in the summer of when news circled around the world that he had been poisoned. And I remember vividly this three day struggle when he was in this hospital in Siberia and the authorities weren't letting him leave, and there was this weird behavior happening, and something strange was going on, a weird thing, that they wouldn't let him go, they wouldn't let him go to Germany,

and eventually they did. They relented. He he was in there a little longer. I think. I think, so sink in or fade out. Um the German couldn't detect and so um. That was in my consciousness. At no point did it ever cross my mind at that stage that oh, I should go make a movie about this guy. It never would have entered my my plane of reality. Well, it just I was sitting in Toronto painting an apartment.

I just didn't occur to me. It wasn't until I was sitting next to this man, Crystal Grozev, who's here with us today that I thought, oh, maybe we should go make a film about this, Maybe we should go pursue that. This is the same way with all of even your earlier shorter films. You do the one about sex abuse, but from the priest stuff up in the indigenous people's prolific sex offender and Canadian history. As I made, the name of the film is Survivors, Row Survivors because

his name is Row. The man's name is Ralph Roe, who was the Anglican minister that had this little prop plane and he would fly up to these communities and everyone adored him. He was like this this whizard missionary fly in and everyone thought it was great. And he'd take the kids on camp trips, but only the boys. And it turned out that he was one of the most insidious criminals in Canadian history. Was he abused hundreds

of thousands of boys. And so I, when I was one or twenty two, made a short film with this extraordinary film producer in Toronto called Peter O'Brien, and we made a film about this man's crimes. Was in his idea and he hired you two directors right when when I was twenty one, and uh, that that film made a little bit of noise. People saw it, and I think it was very significant as a tool for the community to heal and and have and have that um but it was, you know, very challenging, and we've since

entered a different place in Canada. I don't know that that's a film I would have directed now. I think that we would be much better suited finding one of the many indigenous filmmakers to tackle that story. But in that moment you feel sensitive about that, well, very much, of course, absolutely. I think now it's very important we have to think about who gets to tell what story. When I made that movie, I had no consciousness of

that That's not something that was on my radar. It was only years later later that I reflected on it and questioned whether or not I was the right guy to tell that story. And the film was successful and I think the community was appreciative that I made it. But I think now I would I would really question that,

and I would really seek community consultation. It's complicating to note that you're you know, when you talk about your career in the brief minutes we've been talking now, you lose sight of the fact of how young you are, you know, so it was we we tell the audience that you're twenty nine years old, Thank you very much. He's go on Hollywood football now he's full flag Hollywood now,

the twenty eight year old Daniel. You don't realize that you have been doing this for years now and this inclusivity diversity thing has unfolded most vividly during those ten years, during your career, your lifetime. Absolutely, and especially in Canada, our consciousness about the vital necessity of which communities get to tell which stories has has really come to the front. It's something that I'm mindful of, as you know, a Jewish kid that grew up in Toronto. It's something that

I really have to think about. My view was, you know, it's it's the success of an individual filmmaker's career leads them to where they are today. There's films you're making now that people are benefiting from their learning about the world. Documentary films can often be the beachhead for people to understand the topic, to understand events in history beyond books and beyond classroom learning. Documentaries have become tools for learning. And I say to myself, the guy that's directing Navalny.

Let's let's be grateful for his roots and how he got to where he has. But anyway, I'd like to just shift for a second, because we do have our other guests here. Crystal Grozev. You sit there and you see that Navalny is going to come back to Moscow, and you go, why why does he come back to Moscow?

Knowing he must have known what the potential was. He seems to be being charged with embezzlement all the time, and and and the charges dropped, and he runs from mayor and gets the vote, which is significant but not anything earth shattering. But he but he's got a political following. I want you to take me through this line of right before he's poisoned, where is he, what he's doing. We're gonna try you for embezzlement, and then we suspend, we don't do this, we don't do this, and then

we poison you. Take me through what's going on with Putin the Russians in Navani before he's going to get poisoned. Well, what we found out actually is that they tried to poison him years earlier. So they started tailing him. This whole unit of the Russian security service to the FSB that comprises not only political police like the scary muscle guys, but also chemical weapons specialists within the FSB and doctors within the FSB. Saw a killed team, a poisoned team.

They started telling him the moment he announced his bid for the presidency that was in two thousand seventeen, and they tailed him on a total of sixty six trips around the country throughout his whole campaign. So every little village we visited, they were there. They stayed in hotels near him. They usually arrived just ap of hours before he arrived or were left just after he left. So they were there waiting for a sign off from apparently

putting for him to be whacked, to be killed. But this didn't come for years, or maybe it did come. What they don't know is maybe they tried. But Moscow four is the phrase that comes out in this film, and people who see it will know that it's it's a it's a sort of a cold word for Russia's incompetence at the official level. So it could be that they tried earlier to poison him but didn't work out.

So the only thing we see is that in July, just a month and a half before the actual Coma poisoning, the same team followed him and his wife to their getaway to a Baltic coast in Russia, in the in the Clino Gradkneberg, and apparently they tried to poison them there again because we see his wife falling almost into a comma because she experienceds similar symptoms to what he did them on the wrong people eating the custard. Is that the problem with the KGB or the FSP, Well,

they're just not great at poisoning. They're not they're not great, I mean they but they try again when they have. What they lose in competence, they make up in resilience, So they do it. The years later, they keep trying, They keep trying. They tried it twice on another politician who lives here, actually Vladimir Kamos up same poison tis here. They poisoned him there, he came back here because his family lives here. He decided to go back for a

campaign trips. Six months later poisoned him again. So they tried. They tried many times, not just once. So why that moment in time, It's the wrong question, because maybe they tried for four years and that was just the one time that they made enough sort of dozeage into get into his bloodstream by essentially smearing his underpants. That's what happened. Oh yeah, yeah, I went in through him through his

lower body parts. So he goes to Berlin. He finally gets out of there and goes to Germany to get treated and he's cured. Navalni, as I see him on screen and Daniel's film is crisp and sharp and alert and bright eyed and doesn't seem impaired in anyway as a figure in the film. And then he it's cured and he comes back again. Yeah, Like, like who around

him is counseling him? Who is advising him that you could stay here and be the leader of an opposition, You could tour the world and be the darling of the Western world. Very few people would command the same resources that Navalni commanded in raising money. He could be. It could be like the Clinton Foundation, his foundation and raising money for his activities. He could be. He's very charismatic and he could carry on his great work. Instead, he decides to go home and they put him in

prison for night. Why does he go home? Why, Well, you're preaching to the choir. You're asking the same questions that I asked him, And I asked that his why? He looked at me, like, I'm an idiot? How can you ask this question? If I stay here, I just become one of the many talking heads that just talk to Russians from outside of Russia, and Russians would never trust me. Russians would never believe him unless I had

partaken the daily in their daily misery. And I'm sure that people offered him an effective and compelling argument to the contrary. I mean, there's a lot of great work you could do. What are you gonna be able to accomplish from jail for nine years? And then they have you that they're going to kill you there? Probably exactly we got to that conversation and basically says, you're right. If I were a journalist, If I were journalists, I would stay here and continue, probably doing a better job

from here than from there. But I want to be a politician. I want to be president one day, and I can only do it from there, from prison. From well, I asked him, do you realize that you're going to prison? He says yes. I asked him, do you think it's going to be for a couple of months. He said, no, Christo, we don't get it. It It will be years. So he was completely open eyed about it. And I asked his wife,

does she realize that this is going to happen? She said absolutely, so, it's a different type of complex could be, could be? But what is your opinion? Why did he go back? I mean, I'm sure you share some of the same opinions he does. I think fundamentally, what Alexei was not comfortable with was the idea and notion of instructing, of telling, encouraging the Russian people to take to the streets, to go up against the regime, to risk getting arrested.

He was not comfortable saying those things, commanding those things, encouraging those from a Parisian hotel, from a Parisian hotel, from Ville, news from Berlin, from Vienna. If you want to be the moral leader of a nation, which is the role he currently occupies, talk is cheap. You have to be shoulder the shoulder, and you have to be there. And I think that what he is doing, his courage and bravery, hopefully will be an inspiration to the Russian people.

And I think that's why he went back. But is it something that we grapple with and struggle with to this day. Absolutely, was it the right decision? I don't know, but that was between Alexey Navalny and his higher power, and that's the decision he made, and his family's lockstep with him. But it's obviously something that we struggled with.

And I was like, I remember I was making the movie, and I was hoping that we would get some sort of uncertainty, some semblance of insecurity about the decision or the process. The veneer of fear. The man's constitution was ironclad. He never let on that he was afraid. He'd say, oh, Daniel Jesus Christ, of course I have to go back. What am I going to do sit in Germany? Forget it? But I would imagine, I understand what you're saying. I mean, I understand his commitment, but I wonder if it's going

to be easier to poison him. I mean, is he Jeffrey Epstein. In the United States, we live in a place where people are fatigued by scandal, they are fatigued by by what I call the conspira noiak mentality. Well, I would not be comfortable equivocating the Volni with Epstein for obvious reason. No, no, no, But I'm saying in terms of he's he's a sitting duck in a prison. Get the guy in prison. If you want to whack and put him in prison. You know where he is.

You control his movements. He is in the cutsody of the same man who tried to murder him. Christa, what do you think, Well, just remember that what happened to the previous guys that tried to murder him. They're dead now or one of them is most likely, right, the guy that, yes, the guy that the ones that failed so that they kill you. Well, basically they said, have you sit down with the bowl of poison? So why would the new guys trying to say to you give

me that poison left? Do you remember the scene, the Marquee scene in our film when Alexey eight makes a few phone calls I guess an extraction of confession, Remember that part. I don't want to ruin the film from now. Of course, there's drama in this film, unlike any other doc I've seen in recent memory. Well, so we know that some of the individuals who were fooled, well, The whole point is there was a set of FSB officers

who had given the task to kill Navalni. They failed, but they lived in with the belief that their government, their president, their crook president, will protect them from publicity, from that publicity, from neighbors taking revenge on them. That didn't work out. These guys that tried to kill them are now negative celebrities. They all of Russian knows their faces. Their neighbors spray painted their their elevator with like our

our neighbor is a killer. Because they were fact totals of the because they were murderous emissaries of this government, or because they're actual fans of Navalni or both. No, because the neighbors actually didn't realize that the government is a government of murderers, that their neighbors that work, they didn't realize that there were Russians who don't realize that Putin is an Ardus. Yes, we're gonna go. We're gonna get that in a second. And I do want to

put a button on what you said. You're very right, I did. By no means that I mean to be equivocate Epstein with a Navalny for obvious reasons, But I'm just saying that that seems to be the key. You want to get somebody in prison, because then you have complete control over where they go, what they do. There's more opportunities to kill them. So he wants to be a part of things. He's willing to suffer. He's willing to take on the horrible consequences to come back and

one day hopefully get out of prison. Do people view Nivalny as a viable political candidate if he wasn't in prison, if they weren't trying to poison him all the time? Does he have any chance to become the president of Russia? I think he does. For years, the people who doubted him were twofold. One of one part of Russia that didn't like him were fed with propaganda deities, an embezzler, so they just alway just a crow that just wants

to get some of the government money. And another part thought that he is a government proxidy, that he's actually a fake full position figure, that he's very venient for for Putin because straw man, because it's strawman that doesn't have a chance to get into the presidency. Therefore he's an easy one. But after the poisoning and especially after the film, and honestly, any Russian who's seen the film

sees him as a viable presidential candidate. And that's why I think this film has a big future for changing minds and hearts in Russia. And that's why I think and I know that Putin is so upset with the film, not with the investigation so much, not with Navandi so much, but with the film because people who see the film see him as a valuable candidate. What did they say, navalni embezzled. I think they said that he stole donations

from his from his foundation. But what we have to understand is they have a menu of stuff they just make up, like the Russian judicial system. That what do they accuse him? They accused him. I think there was taking money from profit he stole. Originally they said that he stole lumber and some sort of commodities, and then he stole money from the nonprofit. It's nonsense. He and he insulted a war veteran. That's a crime. Just weird,

wacky whatever they can come up with things. And and he and and he was given suspended sentences for two of these inbeztlement charges. Why why didn't they dump him in the prison then, Well, the first time I think it was in twenty during his run for mayor of Moscow.

He was sentenced to five years in prison. But the day of his sentence, tens of thousands of people came out to the streets in protest, and I think that rattled the regime and they said, we cannot we don't want to deal with So with the response in public is uh, full throated enough. If there's a lot of people out there making noise about him, I'm going to assume then on a public relations level, Navalny is a problem for Putin. Well, he is, But what changed with

Navalni Navanni made it the big problem for Putin. His Putin had to take much more drastic measures after he returned from Germany than before. He had to silence the islands of free media completely. He had to crush the people coming through the streets with force, beat old women, drag young kids in hoards to to detention centers, and

that closed a gap, that closed the valve. But but it actually allows the pressure to increase now because these people can go to the streets, but they have it inside them that this anger, so it's a problem for put in Daniel Roar and Crystal grot Sev. The subject of another Daniel Roar documentary was Robbie Robertson. Robertson was also a guest on Here's the Thing. Check out our episode with the legendary musician. We ended up recording the

basement tapes. I don't know, there's something like a hundred and forty songs or something in the course of this. And what we would do is every day we would go to Big Pink, We'd have some coffee, play some checkers. Bob would write. He wrote on a typewriter, so he would type something up. We'd go down into the basement, grab everybody, grab whatever instrument was close. Might even not be the one you play anything. Because there was no rules.

We'd sit on we'd mess around, play through a tune and we'd say, wow, that felt kind of good to hear. More of my conversation with Robbie Robertson go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Daniel Roar and Crystal Grote tell the story of how they convinced Alexei Navalny to allow his life to be filmed. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. The documentary film Navalny was shot prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

And while there is no shortage of condemnations to be leveled against the Kremlin, I wanted to know what they feel is the most significant criticism of Vladimir Poo and his regime. Well, it's corruption. It's really corruption. The one keyword that everybody in the understands is a driving away

value from their daily life. They see the wealth of the elite that has nothing to do with with what a normal Western elite would have, and then a elite for people to understand in the timeline that elite began to accrue on a more concentrated level. Since when that's recent, isn't it in the last twenty years. Well, there's always been people who profit it from not like in this country, from war profit here, etcetera. But but but it seems

to me like there's an oligarchical suffice here that's bigger. Now. Suffice it to say that the oldigarchicle layer our buddhis school Buddhis and Judo Buddhis and like college buds of Putin, so they came through him. They're actually holding does increased dramatically during Putin's really absolutely I think before that you didn't have as much of this. Well we had a

couple of oligarchs and some of them, but not like now. Yes, so that that is the one criticism that is exploited by somebody like like Navali because it's easy to point out than as visible. And one of all the would say if you were here is that every single issue in Russia, it's it's foundation is in corruption, and if we can tackle corruption, we can start to heal the society.

But out there's one thing I want to speak to Earlier, you asked Christo quite a pointed question, and that's whether or not Alexey actually has a reasonable chance of ever becoming president. And one thing I asked him the same question. I was like, dude, are you like delusional? Like how how is this actually gonna happen? And what he spoke to was the Moscow mayoral race and why that is an interesting case study is because he started that race

with two percent of the vote. People didn't like them. They caricatured him as just a blogger, and some wacky Internet guy, and he finished with of the vote. It wasn't a fair election. There was malfeasance. He narrowly avoided a runoff, and I think the Kremlin, who let him run an election, was so nervous about his performance. He ran an American style campaign. He was kissing babies, knocking on doors in the subways, distributing literature, tens of thousands

of volunteers. There has never been a political organization in Russia like that. They were afraid. I don't know if the guy will be president, but what I hope, at the very least is that he will have the chance to compete in the democratic election. Whether the Russian people elect him is up to their own agency, is up to the Russian electorate. I just hope, I dream for a future he can run in this country. You have people who voted for a candidate in two thousand and

sixteen and again in two thousand and twenty. Who does what a lot of conservatives do, which is they give them a lot of predigested pablem about what the conditions are in this country. You know, that's what Fox News is. There's people that need their news pre digested. Is it the same in Putin's Russia. Is it like America? Meaning does this Putin enjoy the support like Trump of a massive number of poorly informed people. These are the lazy, informational,

lazy people. They they are fine, which is getting their news from late night State TV, which is the equivalent of Fox here, which is pre masticated, pre pre chewed, and they don't have time, patients, or interest in getting more.

This would be about sixty percent of the population. Another would be the people who always doubted everything and would consider both sides to any debate to be bad guys, because in Russia, that's how they grew up, being disappointed by the political elite through through centuries and then or the younger guys who are actually interested in information actively. What changed with the Navali poisoning and the protests after

that is that this there was the disinterested. They actually became interested and they figured out finally that Putting is the bad guy here. But they were afraid to go out to the streets. So that but that's still progress, because that doesn't make them uninformed. They just made them makes them afraid. But the one other thing I want to speak to, which is piggy back and alf of

what Crystal just said. I think it's true that a large majority of the country is being spoon fed this state media, but I don't think it is totally the agency of the people. It's like there's literally a vacuum

of information. It's impossible to obtain if you're living in the middle of the country, if you're not saving and so absolutely, it's a totally different dynamics, a different dichotomy, and it just really needs to be understood that in Russia you cannot access other points of view, other information unless you're a super savvy person who knows how to use VPNs and who knows how to get around censorship. I disagree with it because even before this censorship was introduced,

there were islands of free media there. You could get to Twitter, you could get to Facebook. People are just too lazy. The six people just don't want to do that. I want to note for our listeners, this is the first moment where Daniel and Questa are in disagreement. Let's mark this in the script. But this is what we always dream of on these shows. Now, how did you first?

I mean, you investigated the poisoning and you did a lot of work writing about it and exposing the poisoning, correct, you know, without giving a company's secrets if you will, and proprietary information. How do you go about that? Like, how does that begin? How did how did that begin? For you describe in vague terms when you start calling

it never starts with that investigation. It always starts with a previous investigation that you've learned something that you keep it at the back of your mind and it comes handed later. So what happened in this case? We investigated the poisoning of remember the Scriptles, the former Russian double spy who went to to the UK and the Russian military intelligence tried to poison him with Novi schock in Salisbury in two thousand eighteen. So we had investigated this,

we had cracked this crime. We found out where the poisoners had taken their physical poison, their Novi chock, and this turned out to be a particular institution in Russia. And we're not giving too much away, but it's a lab that we discovered and presumed is giving poison to anybody who needs it, like any government agency who's who

wants to kill somebody gets the poison from there. So we decided to trace those guys from that institute, from that lab and see with whom they talked in the days before Navalny was poison And that's how we find and how do you find that? Well, that's the beauty of this crazy Russian corrupt system. Because Russia is corrupt

and dictatorial. The government wants to have information on anybody at any given time, so they gather all this information on you, and that informations for saying that information is for sale because it's corb because Putin cannot survive if it doesn't allow his FSB under links to actually make money on on selling whatever. Some of them are vulnerable, some of them are probably like you exactly. They usually

sell this to criminals. And suddenly here comes journalists who are it's taking a bit of the I've got these voicemails from Navalni. How much you want to give me the come on, two roubles, Come on, you're joking. But I had this literal conversation with one of the data traders who like getting this data from FSB officers and selling it. And when he found out that we are actually publishing investigations that he he wrote to me this angry email. He said I thought you you were just

a criminal. You're a journalist. How dare you so? He was so upset. Yeah, so that's it's a corrupt system, and we exploited the corruption to at the data. Were you first met Navalny? Where we first met Navalny in the Black Forest, the small town called Saint Blasian in on the German French Swiss board And what was necessary described for us? I mean, you're a filmmaker and getting people to sit down with you in front of a camera sometimes that's a pretty herculean feat. Well, that's easy

to get him in the room or not. That's the art of documentary filmmaking is getting in the rooms, being in the right place at the right time. Well, I think we had the best shot of anyone in the world. And the reason that was is we were writing on the coattails Christo. Christo came to me one day and I was there with my producer, Odessa Rae, one of the producers of the film, and Christo and I were working on another project that wasn't going well. Christo walks in,

he says, there's something else and I was like, what's that? Christo? He says, you know that Navalny guy. I said, yeah. He says, I think I have a lead and who tried to poison him? And I go, who's making that movie? Chrystal? He goes, I don't know, should I ask? I'm like, yeah, you should ask right now. And because of the word Crystal had done on the screen pall case, he cracked that very famous Russian poison story only a few years earlier.

Navalny was receptive and Navonne understood that this is a guy to be taken seriously. So Crystal reached out. A week later, we were sneaking across the German Austrian border, which is closed because of the COVID. Where were you at the time? We were in Vienna? What were you doing there? We were in Vienna in limbo, waiting to see if we could go back to another recruited you into the the n s A. When you were you left scat after you're come on, who recruited you? Come on?

I mean I just had you'd be in Vienna. You can't even joke about that, because the Russians are gonna take this interview. They're gonna take your voice saying that to me. They're gonna put it on state media and they're gonna say, look, here's the evidence alc Baldo knows that he works for the joking Vladimir, Literally, it's too late. They're gonna take this and they're no, watch it happened, Christas,

it's gonna happen. You're gonna be on Russian state propaganda calling me a CIA asset, even though you were joking. This is how these Russians operate. They're like, oh, he works for the State Department. He works at the state They already said that, and so you joke. But it's like I'm here being like, well, they're going to use your voice calling me that was a joke. Vladimir on the thank you for specifying. I was in Vienna with

Christo and Odesta. We were working on another project and in that former Soviet state it wasn't going well and I my life was spiraling. I was bugging out. I didn't know if I'd go back to Canada, if I'd stick around for a little bit longer. And then he walks in and magnificently says, what about Navoni? And a week later we were sitting across from Alexey and his chief chief investigator, Maria pev chick, and my job was to convince them why we needed to make a documentary,

why we had to start right now. Krysto, what was your perspective on that first meeting. He wasn't buying it. He was like looking at this kid much younger. He didn't believe it, but he allowed to give him a chance. And the way we agreed with him is let's let's start rolling, and then we decided later because otherwise you're missing every moment every day not being recorded, and that's what sold the whole project in Navoni. And then a week later they were like best of friends, and it

was I would say best. I have to as a filmmaker, I have to just maintain that that, you know, alexey Is is an easy guy to hang out with. We bonded over our wonkish love of politics and all of this, but it's still important that I maintain a critical eye. This is a guy who is controversial in his own way, who's a complicated and compelling figure, and his complications make

him compelling. But he and I hit it off and we enjoyed spending time together, and I think that's part of the reason why we were able to mesh ourselves in his cohort so naturally, so quickly. Documentary filmmaker Daniel Roar and Belling Cat journalist Crystal grotzev. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Spotify

or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Daniel Roar and Crystal Growths have recount the dramatic final moments with Navalni and his family before his heroic return to Russia. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. I asked Daniel Roar and Crystal Grotzep to speculate on what is next for Putin amidst the rumors

of his ailing health. The important thing is that people at the top belief that he has cancer, and that makes him vulnerable, and that makes them unlikely to follow any order that he gives them that endangered their own longevity, political longevity. So this is why Putin is not the sort of all powerful dictator that he was a year ago. Everybody knows that he may have cancer, and this is what matters. What did the people inside Russia, think who

is his likely successor? Is someone teed up because with the Russians there's often a likely successor. You know what has being the strongest sort of strategic talking point of the Kremlin. There's no successor. If not putting, then who This is a phrase, the said phrase, it's a vacuum. That's why people have actually not looked for a success and have sort of embraced this willingness to be the

president or that's are forever. I don't think the people, the regular people in the near future will decide who the successor's It's going to be still the oligarchs and the elite and the generals. And I wonder if at some point, because of this war, disagregious war, Navali doesn't become a more acceptable alternative to the oligarchs because at least with him, they know that he's going to tax them of their their wealth, but they're going to preserve

their lifestyle. And we're putting there. They've lost everything. They are not invited to any party at at in London or in New York anymore. They can't travel and this will change if Navali comes to part well, Navali comes to power, I mean if Putting, I mean to take me through this, because I'm yearning to hear your take on this, which is that if let's say, theoretically put and drop dead tomorrow, then no chance in Navalni would become the president. Then they're not going to hold an election,

are they. Well, it's going to be chaos and there will be somebody who comes in as an interim our guy. So what is Navalny's path to the presidency? Even post put What's going to happen is a fight internal domestic fight, strife among the different groups of the power of lead. Putting has made the only claim to fame that he has. He has been able to manage these different interests within the generals and within the FSB, and once he's gone,

it will be a fight everybody's against everyone else. And this is what has happened in every Western, normal country, that is, that is the normal path to actual democracy, which just hasn't happened during Russia yet. So I think we're going to see a couple of years of terrible dictatorship by somebody else that will gradually go into a real election at some point. Why is poison the weapon of choice in these assassinations. So the first answer is that if it works, it is, and it's deniable, you

don't discover it. Now, in this case, they discovered it, but it was not meant to be discovered. So it's just a heart attack, right. And the second answers, if it doesn't work, then it's so scary that it actually discourages the cent it's it's the worst way to die. You hear the shrieks that, the yells of that. You don't want to die like that, So they want them to suffer. They want yeah, exactly, So this is the chemical equivalent of dumb dumb bullets exactly. But it's not new.

It's not something that put An invented, it's it inherited it from the KGB. They love this thing. You may remember sometimes it's untraceable, meaning someone's dead and you say, oh, it's a heart attack, right, exactly. There was this Bulgarian journalist who was killed with a poisoned umbrella, remember in the seventies in London. That's what the KGP did. They prepared this umbrella with a little pellet that had something like novichok and he died. One of my favorite documentaries

his assassins. We were talking about this before with the with the two women I believe are coached because they think they're on a game show, because they kill a brother by rub the poison in his eyes at the airport where they're presenting him with some game show surprise. Anyway, that that film assassins, which is absolutely numbing. But you think, but obviously poison is better than spattering somebody's head against

the wall in a hotel, even with a silence. But the reality is, if you spatter someone's head against the wall in a hotel, then you have a as as one of the characters in the film says, a body with hole in it. That you have to explain. If Alexey died on that plane, as the Russian government intended, an autopsy would have been carried out by the criminalistics institute. The same guys school poisoned him. So it's really the

perfect crime. Are either of you, are you worried about your own safety or were you ever worried about your own safety during the production of this film? Absolutely not. When you're sitting next to a standing next to Alexey and nov only who's the bravest man on the plane and his staff who are actually in danger. You know, you can't help but feel inspired by their courage and bravery. I think the Russians will continue to make efforts to

discredit the film by coming after me. That's why I take it so seriously when we joke about the CIA recruitment stuff, because they they will literally take this and they will put it on Channel one and they will say, oh, look, here's the evidence. He's admitting it. He's he is from this agency or that agency, which is nonsense. So I'm more concerned about character assassination, you know, them uh, finding someone I've never met who said that it makes a

horrible accusations about me, something like that. That's my concern. What do you think, Cristal No, I totally agree with you. That will just go after your character. They'll probably send some nice girls to sleep with you. What are you gonna work on next? You're gonna do in a documentary about ABA one? I want I want to do something that is completely totally different. I have a few things in development that I'm apprehensive. I don't want to jink,

so I'm apprehensive to talk about um. But the most documentaries I know have a bunch of pots on the stove. Yeah, you have to, you have to, but this one was so all consuming, and uh, it's this is a daunting one to follow up, as I'm sure you can imagine. But I want to make something very soon, and I wanted to be totally totally different. But I love making documentaries, so I hope I get to make another one now. Navalny was the last time you were in his sup pressence?

When did you last seeking? I can tell you exactly. It was January seventeenth in Berlin, Germany, at about one thirty in the afternoon. This year, he got in, I filmed, I was shooting. He went to prison when filming on January seventeenth was the first day he was in car Sarty last year, and I filmed him saying that you see it in the film. He says goodbye to his colleagues, and then we walked downstairs to the car park where

there are are cars, protective vehicles waiting for him. He gets in the car and I didn't I was working. I was shooting, so it's not like I could go say thank you for so nice to meet you. By He understood line you have to keep absolutely and he understood that, and I understood that. And as he was driving off, I gave him a nod and he gave me a nod back, and he was off and you never spoke to him. Nothing. Nothing. Well, you've done this

amazing job, because you have. Certainly I'm not saying this to be kind, and I know, I'm I'm, I'm, I'm in a long line of people that are saying to you, what a remarkable and what a talented filmmaker you are thanking a remarkable job with this film showing the world who Navalny is, at least who we want to believe he is. I'm disappointed that he chose to go to prison.

And although I understand the Victor and Casablanca kind of code, but your film is going to be for many people in this country their introduction and their first chance and an up close look at Navalny. And and that's something that we take very seriously, and it's it's very important to all of us as many people in the world see this film as possible. The reality is Alec that

Alexey is in peril. He is in a very bad spot right now, and the way that you keep him alive is by keeping his name in the global consciousness. Is he allowed to have visitors in prison? He can see his wife and his daughter once every three months for an hour. This film is going to be widely available and everyone in the world needs to see it, and they need to tell their friends to see it.

Alexey's life depends on it. Thank you both, Thank you, director Daniel Roar and journalist Christo grots of Navalny is currently in theaters around the world and will premiere on CNN TV in North America on April. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeice, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.