DAU director Ilya Khrzhanovsky defends film after Ukraine government backlash, calls criticism factually wrong

Ilya Khrzhanovsky, director of the long-running film installation DAU, defended the project on Wednesday after renewed backlash tied to Ukraine and statements attributed to the country’s Ministry of Culture. In an interview reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Khrzhanovsky said attacks on the film and its intended meaning are “factually wrong” and do not reflect what the work is, arguing that critics are misrepresenting the project’s purpose.

Khrzhanovsky’s comments come amid public disputes about how DAU should be understood in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Hollywood Reporter reported that criticism includes claims originating from Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture, and the director responded directly to those characterizations by disputing the framing that DAU serves Russian state cultural goals.

The director said, “DAU is not an instrument of Russian state cultural policy.” He added that the work is “an artistic statement about the nature of totalitarian evil,” positioning the project as an exploration of authoritarian power rather than a cultural product aligned with the Russian state.

Khrzhanovsky’s defense also speaks to a broader question that has dogged politically charged media projects, particularly those involving Russia-linked production histories and international distribution: whether the artistic intent of a work can be separated from the political contexts in which it is created and presented. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the director’s response centers on the factual accuracy of critics’ descriptions rather than on the politics of the subject.

The controversy underscores how government criticism of cultural works can become entangled with questions of speech, cultural institutions, and public standards, especially during wartime. While Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture is described in the report as part of the backlash, Khrzhanovsky told The Hollywood Reporter that the ministry’s statements are not supported by how he says the film should be read.

The report did not indicate that any formal legal action was taken as part of the latest dispute, nor did it detail what specific claims Khrzhanovsky said were incorrect beyond the director’s denial of the alleged alignment with Russian state cultural policy. The next developments that would likely affect audiences and distributors include whether further official statements are issued, whether any institutions hosting or distributing DAU respond publicly, and how international venues weigh governmental criticism against artistic and curatorial framing.