In August 2020 a plane flying from Siberia to Moscow diverted to Omsk when a passenger became deathly ill. That passenger? Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic — Alexei Navalny, leader of Russia’s opposition, whom many had long feared would be killed for his refusal to be silent. Navalny’s wife and colleagues, convinced that Navalny had been poisoned and terrified of what might happen to him in a Siberian hospital, raced to Omsk and fought to evacuate him to Germany. There, authorities confirmed Navalny had been dosed with the nerve agent Novichok. But how, and by whom, was he poisoned?
Unfolding with the pace of a thriller, this enthralling, intimate documentary brings together Navalny and Bellingcat investigative journalist Christo Grozev as they painstakingly assemble the identities of the would-be hit men — and crack the case wide open. Shot in real time as Navalny recovers and the investigation unfolds, director Daniel Roher’s Navalny is also a study of Navalny the man, a masterful media strategist and leader utterly committed to his homeland, offering extraordinary access to a resolute politician intent on reform who will not be cowed by anything, including his own poisoning.