Modern Russian Cinema as a Battleground in Russia's Information War

Book excerpt: This book explores how modern Russian cinema is part of the international information war that has unfolded across a variety of battlefields, including social media, online news, and television. It outlines how Russian cinema has been instrumentalized, both by the Kremlin's allies and its detractors, to convey salient political and cultural messages, often in subtle ways, thereby becoming a tool for both critiquing and serving domestic and foreign policy objectives, shaping national identity, and determining cultural memory. It explains how regulations, legislation, and funding mechanisms have rendered contemporary cinema both an essential weapon for the Kremlin and a means for more independent figures to publicly frame official government policy. In addition, the book employs formal cinematic analysis to highlight the dominant themes and narratives in modern Russian films of a variety of genres, situating them in Russia’s broader rhetorical ecosystem and explaining how they serve the objectives of the Kremlin or its opponents.