Slain Russian journalist’s sister on the film preserving her memory

The thriller about slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Words of War, opens in US cinemas today. The filmmakers took into account some of the inaccuracy concerns about the script raised by her family, Politkovskaya’s sister Elena Kudimova told the BBC.

The film is coming out just in time for the World Press Freedom Day. Words of War was produced by Sean Penn. Anna Politkovskaya is played by Maxine Peake, and one of the leading male roles is performed by Jason Isaacs.

Words of War tells the story of legendary Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya.

In Russia, her name is synonymous with courage and an indomitable spirit. She rose to prominence for her investigations into human rights abuses in Chechnya – a region in southern Russia that fought two wars for independence in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Her older sister, Elena Kudimova, describes her as “someone who, despite all the threats and the danger to her life, kept doing her work until the very end.”

Politkovskaya openly criticised the Russian authorities and President Putin himself. Despite receiving numerous threats over the years, she refused to back down.

Her sister recalls that while Politkovskaya considered emigration, she always changed her mind at the last moment. She would say: “I can’t leave because nobody else will help the people here.”

From 1999, Politkovskaya traveled to Chechnya almost every month for several years. Kudimova recalls that for many wronged and desperate people, Politkovskaya became “the last resort” – the one who could make things right.

She took part in the negotiations for Nord-Ost, the 2002 hostage crisis at a Moscow theatre, after the Chechen rebels specifically requested her.

In 2004, she hoped to help resolve the crisis in Beslan, where heavily armed militants held hostages in a school for three days.

However, she never made it there – she was poisoned on the plane while en route to Beslan.

In 2006, Politkovskaya was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow. Six men were convicted over the murder, but the person who ordered it has never been identified.

Her sister Elena doubts that the mastermind will ever be brought to justice. “If they had wanted to find him, they probably would have done so by now,” Kudimova adds.

Before the film’s release, Politkovskaya’s family raised concerns about the Words of War script, believing the film took too many liberties with the truth.

While the filmmakers insist that the drama is based on real events, they emphasise that it is not a biography.

However, Politkovskaya’s sister notes that the filmmakers did take the family’s feedback into account, and certain scenes that raised the most questions were removed from the final cut.

“[Anna’s son] Ilya was portrayed in the original script as a sort of womanizer, [and in the film] Anna doesn’t have a romance with [Dmitry] Muratov,” she said.

Dmitry Muratov, a Nobel Prize-winning journalist, was Anna Politkovskaya’s former colleague at the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

According to Kudimova, Maxine Peake portrays her sister accurately, though she believes Anna’s personality was “much greater and more complex” than what is depicted on screen.

“Her real life had far more dramatic episodes than those shown in the film,” she says.

Kudimova criticised the film’s setting for leaning too heavily into cold-weather clichés.

“I was struck by the fact that it’s constantly snowing, as if Russia has only one season. In reality, we have all four.” However, Kudimova is grateful that the film helps preserve the memory of her sister.

Kudimova said that Anna never thought about her own legacy. She recalled how, at some point, someone had suggested Anna write an autobiography – she was in her 40s at the time.

Anna had laughed at the idea, saying it felt more like something you do when you’re a hundred. But then she came up with the idea of writing six short stories.

At the end of each, she said, she was supposed to die – but didn’t, for different reasons. And they were going to be funny stories.

When asked about how Anna would want to be remembered, Elena says that her sister did dot think about her legacy: “She simply wanted to live.”

Words of War will be released in the UK on 30 June