Life is the best storyteller. But some events are so unbelievable that if they inspired a fiction film, nobody would buy it. That’s what documentaries are great for. In 2020, when the Canadian director Daniel Roher came across the story of the Alexei Navalny‘s poisoning and the secret investigation that started building around it, he knew it had to be filmed. Following the Russian opposition leader during his rehabilitation in Germany, Daniel and his team literally captured history unfolding before their eyes. After its successful premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, “Navalny” received a lot of praise as well as an Academy Award nomination for “best documentary feature film”. The Oscars ’23 will take place on the 12th of March, and ahead of it we talked with the film’s cinematographer Niki Waltl, AAC about the making of the Navalny documentary. Niki Waltl is an Austrian director of photography working worldwide focused on character-driven documentaries and fiction films. In this interview, he breaks down the most exciting scenes from “Navalny”, shares his cinematographic approach to the documentary, and talks about challenges during the shoot. Niki Waltl on one of the “Navalny” sets. Credit: Lorena Mühsam Making of the Navalny documentary: cinematic look and feel CineD: First things first. How did you come to this project? Did you know at that point who Navalny was, what he did, and his story? Niki Waltl: Actually, the director, Daniel Roher, and our producer, Odessa Rae, found me through a film production in Berlin for...
Published By: CineD - Friday, 10 March, 2023