May 27, 2025: Renowned filmmaker and producer Alexander Rodnyansky is returning to his documentary roots with a deeply personal new project titled Notes of a True Criminal. According to Deadline, the film is nearing completion and explores themes of war, identity, and historical memory through an intimate lens.
Rodnyansky, once the founder of Ukraine’s first independent TV network 1+1, was sentenced in absentia to eight and a half years in prison by a Moscow court in 2023 for his outspoken anti-war stance. He referenced that sentence with a touch of irony in explaining the film’s title: “It’s called that because I’m a criminal now,” he remarked.
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Notes of a True Criminal blends historical and contemporary footage — drawing from Rodnyansky’s own Cold War-era documentaries, as well as rare film shot by his mother and grandfather during World War II. The film also features recent visuals from the war in Ukraine, battlefield sequences, prisoner-of-war imagery, and military trials.
“This is a very personal statement told largely through the story of one family,” Rodnyansky told Deadline. “It moves back and forth in time, beginning with the outbreak of the war. I even included scenes I shot in 1990 during the Soviet withdrawal from East Germany. It felt like those soldiers weren’t coming home from war — they were heading into one.”
Set for completion by next month, the film is currently being pitched to major international film festivals. Rodnyansky also revealed plans to shoot his next round of projects in Eastern Europe, citing countries like Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Latvia as possible filming locations.
With Notes of a True Criminal, Rodnyansky continues his bold storytelling tradition — merging the personal with the political in a time of global upheaval.