EXCLUSIVE: An award-winning documentary in regards to the girl referred to as “the Russian Erin Brockovich” is getting help from… the true Erin Brockovich.
The environmental activist famously portrayed by Julia Roberts on display screen has signed on as an govt producer of Black Snow, which traces the evolution of Natalia Zubkova from housewife to whistleblower. Brockovich attended the U.S. premiere of the movie Thursday night time at DOC NYC, together with director Alina Simone, Academy Award-nominated producer Kirstine Barfod, editor Aleks Gezentsvey, and different members of the filmmaking workforce. Black Snow screens once more at this time at DOC NYC.
Natalia Zubkova reviews on an environmental catastrophe in ‘Black Snow’
Courtesy Alina Simone
The documentary premiered at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen earlier this 12 months, profitable the competition’s prestigious F:ACT AWARD. It additionally gained the Sustainable Future Award on the Sydney Movie Pageant in Australia.
A synopsis of the movie notes, “When residents of a distant Siberian coal mining metropolis uncover that an deserted mine has caught fireplace, pushing poisonous fuel into their houses, they flip to homemaker-turned-journalist Natalia Zubkova for assist. However after her information protection of the coal fireplace goes viral, the federal government launches an enormous effort to cowl up the reality. Within the shadow of an more and more authoritarian authorities, Natalia embarks on a harmful quest to disclose the total extent of the environmental disaster unfolding in her midst. Filmed over the course of 4 turbulent years in Russia and japanese Europe, this taut and revelatory eco-thriller shines new mild on the human value of coal and the clandestine ways of Russia’s trendy surveillance state.”
In a press release, Brockovich commented, “The movie revealed the huge attain of those environmental points and the extraordinary lengths a mom will go to guard her kids, household, and group. Black Snow reminds us that we’re all linked by way of our surroundings, and it’s a world concern that impacts us all.”
Simone, a Ukrainian-born journalist, makes her directorial debut with Black Snow. Her work has appeared within the New York Occasions, Wall Avenue Journal, Guardian Lengthy Learn, The Atlantic and NPR, amongst many others.
“From day one, we noticed Natalia’s inspiring quest for environmental justice as an ‘Erin Brockovich story’ and marveled on the parallels between one mom from Kansas and one other from Kiselyovsk,” Simone noticed. “Having Erin be part of our workforce as an govt producer feels, nicely, form of like a Hollywood dream.”
(L-R) E.P. Erin Brockovich, producer Kirstine Barfod, director Alina Simone, editor Aleks Gezentsvey attend the U.S. premiere of ‘Black Snow’ at DOC NYC
@Vane Lopera Images
Barfod earned an Academy Award nomination and a Peabody Award for producing The Cave, the Syria-focused documentary directed by Feras Fayyad. The native of Denmark based Nordland Footage in 2022, a manufacturing firm based mostly in New York.
DOC NYC programmer Bedatri D. Choudhury writes of Black Snow, “After we learn profiles of braveness in newspapers, we in all probability don’t learn of Natalia Zubkova. A citizen journalist and mom, Zubkova is a military of 1 who first exposes after which fights the rampant corruption of the Russian authorities and its coal mafia, regardless of surveillance, harassment, and threats. On this investigative thriller, witness the story of an environmental warrior who dangers all of it in her pursuit of justice and accountability from an authoritarian regime.”
Black Snow is supported by Catapult Movie Fund, the Redford Heart, IDA, Sara’s Want Basis, Justice for Journalists, Mountain Movie, Movie Impartial, SVT, Burnt Umber Productions, Doc Society and the Gotham Movie & Media Institute.
The movie is presently looking for U.S. distribution; Cinephil is representing worldwide rights.
