BIFF Takes Audiences Inside Putin’s Russia

Two compelling documentaries being screened at the 15th Bermuda International Film Festival will provide audiences with rare looks inside the autocratic Russian state created by recently re-elected president Vladimir Putin, a former KGB operative with a flair for both mailed-fist tactics and crowd-pleasing political theatre.

German director Cyril Tuschis’ documentary about the jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky proved to be the surprise hit of the 2011 Berlin film festival after a print was stolen from the director’s office prior to its screeningts.

“Suddenly everybody wanted to see it,” said the UK “Guardian”. “In fairness, ‘Khodorovsky’ was always an interesting proposition. With a budget of just £336,000, the director, Cyril Tuschi, claimed to have secured something no media organisation in the world had managed: an on-camera interview conducted through the bars of the dock during Khodorkovsky’s second trial in Moscow last year.

“Oddly, the interview itself is one of the less gripping scenes in the 113-minute documentary. It is remarkable only for the chipper attitude of the prisoner, who laughs at the charges against him – where on earth could he have hidden the 2bn barrels of oil he was alleged to have stolen, he asks Tuschi.

“A more compelling interviewee is Dmitry Gololbov, former deputy head of the legal department of Khodorkovsky’s oil firm Yukos. He seems furious with his former boss. ‘I spit on him’, he says, suggesting Khodorkovsky effectively wrote his own sentence. ‘He was one of the oligarchs who created the whole judicial system he is in right now’.”

Trailer for “Khodorkovsky”

Christian Michel, who advised Khodorkovsky in the early years of his career, even suggests the oligarch, eyeing a political career in opposition to Vladimir Putin, wanted to go to jail “to redeem himself” in the eyes of the Russian people.

It would be in his character, said Mr. Michel, to “play this sort of gambit – to sacrifice his queen in order to win the end game”.

In an enthusiastic review the “Financial Times” Nigel Andrews gave the film four out of five stars, commenting: “Cyril Tuschi’s documentary simultaneously enthralls and appalls.

“He collates the evidence masterfully to substantiate what much of the world is already convinced of. Tuschi uses every research weapon at his disposal. This film could not be more timely or more trenchant.”

And Kate Muir of the London “Times” said it was a “weird and wonderful documentary … the persistence of the journalist-director Tuschi is admirable.”

“Putin’s Kiss”, an absorbing new documentary by Danish director Lise Birk Pedersen charts four years in the life of Masha Drokova, who became famous as the girl who kissed Putin at a public event.

“When we first meet Masha, she’s 16 and an avid member of Nashi, a youth group officially created to advance the Russian nation but designed, in fact, to promote Putin’s party, United Russia,” reported National Public Radio’s Tom Powers. “Ardent, articulate and full-figured, Masha quickly rises in Nashi. And because Nashi is linked to Putin, her fealty brings rewards. She gets a car, an apartment, a place in Moscow University, even her own TV show. Such are the glories of Putin’s Russia.

Trailer for “Putin’s Kiss”

Mr. Powers continued in his NPR report: “But then this glory starts to curdle. Masha begins hanging out with people critical of Putin, including Oleg Kashin, a wry journalist who jokes that her life has become like a reality show. Not only does she grow more independent, but she also starts to see that Nashi has its sinister side. It marches through Moscow carrying placards showing the faces of people who are supposedly Russia’s enemies — opposition politicians, muckraking journalists, even 80-year-old women renowned for their human-rights work during the Soviet era. By the time Kashin is nearly killed in a politically motivated beating, Masha’s old certainties are evaporating.”

Mr. Powers said what makes “Putin’s Kiss” so intriguing goes well beyond Masha’s personal rise and fall.

“For starters, it offers a fresh glimpse into how Putin’s Russia actually works,” he said. “We see why Putin, who always looked to me like a ’60s James Bond villain, enjoyed years of popularity. Masha grew up watching him bring order and prosperity to a country that had melted down after the fall of communism. He seemed like a savior.

“At the same time, we see how Putin, an ex-KGB man, has created his own version of democracy. He calls it “sovereign democracy,” an oligarchy that uses everything from the police to street thugs to groups like Nashi to keep down anyone who might oppose him. Putin has created a Russia where you can do most of what you want — just so long as you don’t question who’s running it or how.”

For scheduling information, visit BIFF’s website, call +1 (441) 293-3456 or email info@biff.bm.

BIFF 2012 runs from March 16-22 featuring more than 80 films screening both in competition and also in such categories as Shorts and Masterworks. The online and physical box office — courtesy of Freisenbruch Meyer at 75 Front Street in Hamilton —  are now open.

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