Museum of Journalism and Free Speech in Washington to Screen US Premiere of Kremlin anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film

June 8, 2016

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate distribution

 

 

 

Museum of Journalism and Free Speech in Washington to Screen US Premiere of Kremlin anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film

 

8 June 2016 – On Monday, 13 June 2016, Norwegian PirayaFilms AS plans to screen the anti-Magnitsky propaganda film at the free speech museum in Washington, Newseum, at 6:30 pm.

 

In an anonymous email sent yesterday from a “The Magnitsky Act Screening” gmail account:  themagnitskyactscreening@gmail.com to an undisclosed list of recipients, Piraya Films AS invites to “a special screening of The Magnitsky Act with reception and Q&A by Director Andrei Nekrasov moderated by Seymour Hersh.”  The event is to take place at the Newseum’s Knight Conference Center, 7th floor.

 

Norwegian Piraya Films AS intends for members of the US Congress and their staffers to attend the screening, saying:

 

“This event complies with congressional gift rules so that Members and staff of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives may attend.”

 

The attendance at the screening is to be tightly controlled. The guests are told that “photo identification will be required for entry into this event as it is by invitation only” and that the invitation itself is “not transferrable.”

 

The anti-Magnitsky propaganda film, containing an entirely false and defamatory narrative of the Russian authorities, was directed by Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, who supported Putin’s invasion into Ukraine, and produced by a Norwegian film company associated with him, called Piraya Film AS.

 

“The lies presented in the anti-Magnitsky film are not new, and are based on the past narrative from the Russian authorities who covered up the murder of Sergei Magnitsky and the criminals who stole $230 million from the Russian people – the crime Magnitsky exposed,” said William Browder, leader of the global Magnitsky justice movement and author of “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy.

 

“However, the grandiose and brazen falsification in the anti-Magnitsky film because of its scope and the ramification for international policy towards Russia is akin to other attempts to re-write history and falsify the truth, seen in the case of Soviets’ denying their involvement in the Katyn massacre or claims denying that the Holocaust existed,” said William Browder.

 

Russian human rights activists who conducted an independent investigation into the Magnitsky’s case have publicly denounced the anti-Magnitsky film.

 

Ludmila Alexeeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and one of the last surviving leaders of the Soviet dissident movement, said on 4 May 2016:

 

“The high-profile exposure of corruption was started specifically by Sergei Magnitsky. That is why it is so important for the people complicit in the conspiracy to defame Magnitsky and the evidence which he made public. As a result, this film appeared…  To try to show that everything – what Magnitsky first said, then the Panama leaks – are nonsense. What they want is to revoke sanctions. They decided to start with the disavowing of the Magnitsky list.”

 

“I have no idea who specifically is behind this [Andrei Nekrasov’s] film and who hired the author, I have no idea. But one thing is clear – these are the people who are very interested to disavow the evidence of corruption, which started to emerge first with the case of Magnitsky (and thanks to Magnitsky), and continues to emerge, but on a global scale (such as the Panama leaks),” said Ludmila Alexeeva (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72940.html).

 

Valery Borschev, head of the Moscow Public Oversight Commission, an independent panel that under Russian law investigated Magnitsky’s death since 2009, said on 2 May 2016:

 

“I state firmly: the film does not reflect the true state of affairs in part concerning the detention of Magnitsky.” (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72931.html).

 

When the anti-Magnitsky film was first proposed in April 2016 for a screening at the European Parliament in Brussels by Finnish MEP Heidi Hautala, the Magnitsky family made a public statement against any form of distribution of this film because of its false and defamatory content.

 

The European parliament then cancelled the film screening on 27 April 2016. Shortly after, the French TV network ARTE declined to broadcast the anti-Magnitsky film in May 2016. The German TV station ZDF also declined to broadcast the film in May 2016.

 

Yesterday, on June 7, 2016, following an application to the Oslo City Court for an injunction by the Magnitsky family, the Norwegian film festival, Kortfilmfestivalen, withdrew the anti-Magnitsky film produced by Piraya Films AS from its program on June 9-10, 2016. Judge Henning Kristiansen signed the transcript of the proceeding, which confirms that the festival will not show the film in any version.

 

“No public interest dictates spreading of an untrue and grossly defamatory film of this nature. As previously mentioned, defamation in the film includes the “acquittal” of Russian authorities for gross corruption and serious human rights violations in the Magnitsky case. The public is not well served by disinformation,” said the Magnitsky family in their injunction application to the Oslo court.

 

Piraya Films AS is co-owned by Norwegians Bjarte Mørner Tveit and Torstein Grude, who also serve as Piraya Films’s CEO and Chairman respectively, with a further 10% owned by Sobra AS, a real estate company belonging to Find Gjedebo, according to the Norwegian corporate registry.

 

Sergei Magnitsky, Hermitage’s lawyer who uncovered the US$230 million fraud and testified about the complicity of Russian officials in it, was falsely arrested, detained for 358 days without trial, tortured and killed in Russian police custody at the age of 37. The events of this case are described in the New-York Times best-seller “Red Notice  by William Browder and in a series of campaign videos on Youtube channel “Russian Untouchables.” Recently, thanks to Panama Papers, proceeds of US$230 million fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, were traced to Swiss account of a company owned by Sergei Roldugin, a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

For more information, please contact:

 

Justice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

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