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'Russia wants to hack the Oscars': smear campaign targets Syrian nominee
Source: The Guardian
'Russia wants to hack the Oscars': smear campaign targets Syrian nominee
Feras Fayyad, the film-maker behind Last Men in Aleppo, has become the subject of a vicious effort to discredit his work
Olivia Solon in San Francisco
Tue 6 Feb 2018 11.00 GMT
The film-maker behind the Oscar-nominated documentary Last Men in Aleppo has been targeted by a smear campaign that seeks to paint him as a terrorist sympathiser in the run up to the Academy Awards.
Feras Fayyad spent a year following a handful of volunteer rescue workers in the besieged Syrian city as they rushed towards bombed buildings to try and find people in the rubble. The resulting documentary has earned widespread critical praise and won awards including the Sundance grand jury prize.
However, the international recognition has been accompanied by an organized attempt to tarnish the film-maker’s reputation, following a playbook of Russia-backed disinformation and manipulation.
“It is like Russia wants to hack the Oscars like they hacked the US election,” he told the Guardian.
Since the Oscar nominations were announced, Fayyad, a Syrian national, has become the subject of several articles by Russia state news agency Sputnik News and “alternative news” sites to discredit his work, describing it as a “propaganda piece funded by western governments” and an “Al-Qaida promotional film”. Others have trawled through his social media accounts and published pictures of his family and friends. Syrian state media has followed suit. On Twitter and Facebook, dozens of accounts have accused Fayyad of being a liar and terrorist sympathiser.
-snip-
Feras Fayyad, the film-maker behind Last Men in Aleppo, has become the subject of a vicious effort to discredit his work
Olivia Solon in San Francisco
Tue 6 Feb 2018 11.00 GMT
The film-maker behind the Oscar-nominated documentary Last Men in Aleppo has been targeted by a smear campaign that seeks to paint him as a terrorist sympathiser in the run up to the Academy Awards.
Feras Fayyad spent a year following a handful of volunteer rescue workers in the besieged Syrian city as they rushed towards bombed buildings to try and find people in the rubble. The resulting documentary has earned widespread critical praise and won awards including the Sundance grand jury prize.
However, the international recognition has been accompanied by an organized attempt to tarnish the film-maker’s reputation, following a playbook of Russia-backed disinformation and manipulation.
“It is like Russia wants to hack the Oscars like they hacked the US election,” he told the Guardian.
Since the Oscar nominations were announced, Fayyad, a Syrian national, has become the subject of several articles by Russia state news agency Sputnik News and “alternative news” sites to discredit his work, describing it as a “propaganda piece funded by western governments” and an “Al-Qaida promotional film”. Others have trawled through his social media accounts and published pictures of his family and friends. Syrian state media has followed suit. On Twitter and Facebook, dozens of accounts have accused Fayyad of being a liar and terrorist sympathiser.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/feb/06/last-men-in-aleppo-feras-fayyad-syria-russia-smear-campaign