Alexander Rodnyansky
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Alexander Rodnyansky
Alexander Rodnyansky

Four-times Academy Award nominee, Golden Globe winner Alexander Rodnyansky is the prolific international producer of over 30 television series and 40 feature films, which have been selected by major international festivals from Cannes and Venice to Berlin and Toronto and won multiple awards, including six prizes of the Cannes film festival in different years.

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Nosorog

Directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov

Produced by Alexander Rodnyansky and Aliya Menygozhina

“Nosorog,” tells a contemporary story of Tamara, a distraught woman on a desperate search for her missing son in a small town consumed by violent riots. To help get her son back, she hires a shady detective, Brayuk, with unexpected consequences.

Once Within a Time

Directed by Godfrey Reggio

Produced by Steven Soderbergh, Alexander Rodnyansky and Michael Fitzgerald

Once Within a Time is a mesmerizing fantasy thriller from the incredible mind of Godfrey Reggio. The celebrated director returns after ten years with a new experimental film unlike any other from his already daring career: a bardic fairy tale about the end of the world and the beginning of a new one, tinged with apocalyptic comedy, rapturous cinematography, unforgettable vistas, and the innocence and hopes of a new generation. Score composed by Philip Glass.

Dissident

Co-directed by Andriy Alferov and Stas Gurenko

Produced by Oleksandr Omelyanov and Alexander Rodnyansky

The film follows the story of Oleg, a former UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which fought against the Soviet Union for Ukrainian independence during World War II) veteran who is released from a Soviet camp. He tries to live an ordinary life but quickly finds friends among former political prisoners and dissidents. He meets a prominent Ukrainian writer, who wants to write a novel about the UPA and asks Oleg for help, inspiring him to believe that change is possible in the Soviet Ukraine.

Adrift

Directed by Rory Kennedy

Produced by Alexander Rodnyansky, Kevin Macdonald, and Rosanne Korenberg

With an estimated 35 million people currently displaced from their homes, the world now has more refugees than at any other time since World War II. While media reports thrive on sensationalism and populist politicians adopt fear-mongering campaigns, the lives of people fleeing deadly conflict hang in the balance. Without diminishing the extent of the crisis, Adrift contextualizes the debate around migration, highlighting the historical basis of the world’s engagement with refugees.

Leviathan (2014) by Andrey Zvyagintsev
Cannes Film Festival

Winner

Best script

Golden Globe

Winner

Best foreign language film

Academy Award

Nomination

Best foreign language film

Loveless (2017) by Andrey Zvyagintsev
Cannes Film Festival

Winner

Jury prize

Golden Globe

Nomination

Best foreign language film

Academy Award

Nomination

Best foreign language film

Beanpole (2019) by Kantemir Balagov
Cannes Film Festival

Winner

Un certain regard best director prize

Cannes Film Festival

Winner

Fipresci prize

Unclenching the Fists (2021) by Kira Kovalenko
Cannes Film Festival

Winner

Un certain regard best director prize

Elena (2011) by Andrey Zvyagintsev
Cannes Film Festival

Winner

Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize

Asia Pacific Screen Awards

Winner

Best Performance by an Actress

Achievement in Directing

Mama, I am home (2021) by Vladimir Bitokov
Venice Film Festival

Orizzonti Extra program

Occupation

Directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi

A brutal drama about the war in Ukraine, based on a Peter Pomerantsev’s article for The Atlantic ‘We Can Only Be Enemies’. This is the story of one Ukrainian village that is forced to live under Russian occupation but never surrenders.

Debriefing the President

Based on the bestselling novel of John Nixon, starring Joel Kinnaman.

Based on the controversial best-seller by John Nixon, the first American to positively identify and interrogate Saddam Hussein after his capture, Debriefing The President is the story of one man’s quest for truth, one superpower’s ill-fated campaign of misguided revenge, and the Shakespearean tragedies that unfold between fathers and sons when nations are at stake.

Butterfly Jam

Written and directed by Kantemir Balagov

In a Newark-set Kabardian community, a 15-year-old champion wrestler must come to terms with the man his father is, and isn’t, after a life-altering event. Butterfly Jam will be the first English-language feature of celebrated director Kantemir Balagov (Tesnota, Beanpole).

Alexander began his career making documentaries before founding Ukraine’s first independent television network, 1+1, which became one of the major powers that shaped the new democratic Ukraine and launched future president’s Vladimir Zelensky’s television career. 

He then moved to Russia, where he took the helm of Moscow-based US company CTC Media which grew from a one entertainment TV-channel into a NASDAQ-trading media-powerhouse worth $4 billion. 

After leaving CTC Media in 2006, he stayed in Moscow and produced a slate of Russian, Ukrainian and international feature films. 

In 2018 Rodnyansky launched his Los Angeles-based development banner AR Content.

Rodnyansky’s producing credits include Cloud Atlas by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, Where is Anne Frank by Ari Folman, Leviathan and Loveless by Andrey Zvyagintsev, Beanpole by Kantemir Balagov, Unclenching the Fists by Kira Kovalenko and other key works by some of the most acclaimed filmmakers.

In 2021 Alexander Rodnyansky signed a first-look deal with Apple TV+.

He is a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, European Film Academy and Asia-Pacific Film Academy.

About

Alexander Rodnyansky’s AR Content is a Los Angeles based development company designed to deliver premium quality content for film and television on an international scale. With a focus on true stories surrounding global events, or spotlighting diverse and relevant cultural conflicts, the company delves into fictional drama, genre films and documentaries.

ARC’s current slate of projects across various stages of development and production include the event limited series ‘Debriefing The President’ starring Joel Kinnaman along with ‘Butterfly Jam’ by Kantemir Balagov, ‘Occupation’ by Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, among many others.

Public anti-war position

From the first days of war, Alexander Rodnyansky publicly opposed the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He gave multiple anti-war interviews to both film industry publications — Variety, Deadline and Screen International as well as international media.

Alexander Rodnyansky turned his personal Instagram account into an anti-war media outlet, documenting for his largely Russia-based audiences the atrocities of war in Ukraine, including the massacre of Bucha and other war crimes perpetrated by the Russian army.

For his public anti-war position the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation Sergey Shoigu made a request to the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova to eliminate “Rodnyansky from cultural agenda of Russia”. In a letter leaked to a Russian publication Insider, Rodnyansky was named alongside Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky.

A public pro-war group that lists “national traitors that pose threat to Russian interests” branded Alexander Rodnyansky as an “enemy” of the Russian state.

On October 21, 2022 Alexander Rodnyansky was declared to be a “foreign agent” by the Russian Ministry of Justice. A so-called “foreign agents” law, passed in 2012 and repeatedly expanded, allows the Justice Ministry to label groups or individuals “foreign agents,” exposing them to fines and harassment that stymie their work.

On May 17, 2023 the Basmanny District Court of Moscow arrested Rodnyansky in absentia in connection on the charges of “spreading fake news” about the Russian army. There had been no previous reports of a criminal case against Rodnyansky. According to the court’s press service, Rodnyansky, who is outside Russia, will be arrested once Russian authorities manage to detain him or to get him extradited.

On October 22nd a Moscow court in an overtly political case has sentenced Oscar-nominated film producer Alexander Rodnyansky to eight-and-a-half years jail in absentia on Monday for his anti-war position. In response to the unjust sentence Rodnyansky released the following statement:

«From the first days of war when the Minister of Defence of Russian Federation directed the Minister of Culture to ban all of my work in Russia I knew that my anti-war position would be inevitably punished. It never stopped me from publicly supporting Ukraine and protesting the war and of course it won’t stop me now.

I do not recognise the authority of the Russian court or my sentence and I will continue to work and speak the truth about the brutality of Russian invasion both in media and through my films».

Contacts

For creative inquiries

Please do not submit unsolicited works. No employees of AR Content, nor its affiliates, will read unsolicited materials or open files attached to unsolicited emails. If you have a story idea, please go through the appropriate channels.

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