The Kremlin said today that the Oscar award given to a documentary about the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and his imprisonment after his 2021 return to Moscow shows “politicization” on the part of Hollywood.

The film Navalny won the Oscar for best documentary on Sunday and shows the Kremlin critic recovering in Germany after being poisoned with a nerve agent in Siberia in 2020 and working with investigative website Bellingcat to uncover those responsible.

During the Oscar ceremony, together with the Canadian director of the film Daniel Roher, Yulia Navalnaya, wife of the 46-year-old Navalny, complained that “my husband is in prison because he told the truth (…) because he defended democracy” and added : “Alexis, I dream of the day when you will regain your freedom, when our country will regain its freedom. Stay strong my love.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had not seen the film, but nevertheless “I venture to assume that there is clearly a certain element of politicization of the issue.”

He said politics is not unknown in Hollywood, “but I can’t speak to any cinematic value of this movie because I’m not an insider.”

In the film, Navalny blamed the poisoning case on a group of agents of Russia’s FSB state security service. Russia denies that it attempted to assassinate him.

Navalny has long been a headache for President Vladimir Putin, who avoids mentioning him in public. He is in a high-security prison serving a combined 11.5-year sentence for contempt of court and fraud, charges he claims are designed to silence him.

The CNN Films/HBO Max film was competing against the documentaries “All that breathes,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Fire of love” and “A House Made of Splinters.”