Yura Borisov

It’s early on the first proper screening day of my fourth year attending the New York Film Festival (NYFF), when the crowd is alerted that the packed, 35-year-old, 268-seat Walter Reade Theater will have to be evacuated. NAZA, the new documentary from half of the Oscar-winning team behind No Other Land (Yuval Abraham and Rachel…

Actor Yura Borisov, called the “Ryan Gosling of Russia” by director Sean Baker, was until recently mostly known for winning Best Leading Actor at The Golden Eagle Awards (the country’s Academy Awards equivalent) back home in 2021. Borisov was nominated that year for portraying Mikhail Kalashnikov in a 2020 propaganda film named after the military…