It’s a minivan, like so many others, come to pick up four octogenarians at the border that separates Poland from Ukraine. Old relatives who, like so many others, must be sheltered from Russian bombs in this leaden mid-March. At the wheel, the Ukrainian Alexandre Rodnianski, accompanied by his wife, Valeriya. Both are producers. How can we guess that these hands are working, in parallel, to resolve the conflict?
On February 24, around 5 a.m., Alexandre Rodnianski, 60, received a call from his son, Alexandre Rodnianski Jr. “Dad, they started”, loose the latter, while the first missiles sweep over the suburbs of kyiv. The father held the reins of Ukrainian television for a long time, then of the Russian audiovisual sector, both commercial and independent. A graduate of Princeton, in the United States, the son is the economic adviser to the Ukrainian president, ex-actor Volodymyr Zelensky.
In shock, Rodnianski senior immediately takes a stand on Instagram, where he has 200,000 subscribers. With passion, he quotes the appeals to the German people of the writer Thomas Mann, exiled in Hollywood during the Second World War.
“Until then, on my account, I only spoke of culture, he rewinds, over the phone. There, I called a spade a spade: this aggression is a senseless mistake by Russia. » The producer initially saw in Vladimir Putin’s verbal escalation only a “political wager” a “strategy to raise the stakes”. From the first explosion, he understands that he was wrong. And brings together Russian filmmakers opposed to the conflict, alongside Moscow critic Anton Dolin, close to the number one enemy of the regime, Alexeï Navalny.
sense of diplomacy
At the same time, the Ukrainian presidency asks him to find, on the Russian side, interlocutors with whom to start talks. “I never ventured into politics, it’s not my world, he modulates in his round voice. I called the most powerful people I know, influential entrepreneurs. The only one who answered me is Roman Abramovich. » Reputed to be close to the Kremlin, the oligarch will go as far as Belarus, where he will participate in the first unsuccessful negotiations between belligerents.
Alexandre Rodnianski: “To my great surprise, Zelensky has become a hero, calm, courageous, inspiring. I’m not sure his predecessors would have done that.”
As an aside, Rodnianski may have harsh words against some of Putin’s intimates; Abramovich, on the other hand, retains all his esteem. “I met Roman after he made his fortune, he’s an interesting personality, who stands out. Rather than funding propaganda shows and films, it supported the avant-garde: the Garage, for example, an underground cultural venue in Moscow; or even plays and independent films, including those that I produce. His decision to sell his London football club, Chelsea, and donate the proceeds to the victims, surprised many people. Not me. »
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