The Antique: To Be Georgian in Russia

It wrapped filming on-location in St. Petersburg the day before Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Consequently, it is likely to be the last foreign film shot in Russia for the foreseeable future (unless a Chinese production requests permits). Frankly, they did not receive a very warm-welcome, much like the Georgian characters it follows. In 2006, Georgians like Medea already faced discrimination and harassment, even before the mass-deportation. However, Medea finds an unconventional safe-ish space in Russudan Glurjidze’s The Antique, which is now streaming on Film Movement Plus.

Medea’s name is a coincidence. She never murders her children. Medea’s only sin involves antique smuggling into Russia. Even before the 2006 expulsions (which the EU Court of Human Rights ruled violated the Europpean Convention on Human Rights), Medea intuitively sought out under-the-radar living conditions. It turns out she could purchase a spacious but dilapidated flat at a surprisingly affordable price, but the other terms were unusual.

Like a Putin-era sitcom, Vadim Vadimich sells his title to Medea, but she must agree to cohabitate with him as her flat-mate. They could not be more opposite. She is a young Georgian, while he is aa crusty old Russian nationalist implied to have served in shadowy state security positions during his younger, more lucid years. However, it sort of works for a while, but bad things are brewing.

Salome Demuria lights up the screen as Medea, despite her quiet reserve. She is smart and even witty. Consequently, some of her best scenes come bantering with the disembodied voice of Manana, the owner of her dodgy antique “import/export” firm, who oversees the warehouse via surveillance cameras and speakers.

Likewise, Sergey Dreyden is quite poignant depicting Vadimich’s slow decline. Even subtitled, Leila Alibegashvili’s voice for the unseen boss drips with attitude. Plus, Vladimir Vdovichenkov stirs up their fragile flat dynamics in unpredictable ways, as Vadimich’s semi-estranged son.

Words of War: The Anna Politkovskaya Story

October 7^th might be the most evil date in the calendar. Obviously, it has become infamous for the Hamas’s horrific 2023 terror attacks. Furthermore, in 2006, independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was ruthlessly gunned down, in a blatantly politically motivated assassination, on October 7^th—a date possibly selected as a “birthday gift” for Putin, who was indeed born on that very date. It was a tragedy, an outrage, and a precursor of worse atrocities to come. Politskaya’s idea of journalism was telling the truth, without fear or favor. Not surprisingly, that incurred the Putin regime’s wrath, as viewers witness in James Strong’s biographical drama, Words of War, which opens today in New York.

Politkovskaya wrote for Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s only editorially independent newspaper, edited by Dmitry Muratov, a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. Muratov is a muckraker at heart, but even he worries about the risks Politkovskaya takes. Frequently reporting from the battlefields of Russia’s dirty war in Chechnya, she earns the Chechens’ trust revealing Russian war crimes. She also earns Russian military’s hostility and several beatings.

Her family is not necessarily thrilled with her new notoriety, especially her son Ilya. Her semi-estranged husband Alexander somewhat resents seeing her journalistic prestige eclipsing his own. Yet, he makes a point of recording the death threats she receives, which becomes almost a full-time job. Thanks to the credibility she established, the Chechen militia hostage-takers requested her as a mediator during the Moscow Theater Siege, so she saw first-hand how the Russian police killed 132 innocent civilians through their use of an opioid-derived chemical agent.

The film begins with the first attempt on Politkovskaya’s life, an airliner poisoning that eerily parallels the 2020 attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny, and then rewinds to show the why’s and how’s. Frankly, it really starts with a bang, because her escape from the compromised hospital, engineered by Muratov and her grown children, Ilya and Vera, is a true white-knuckle sequence.

It is also worth noting Words of War never indulges in hagiography. As portrayed by the aptly cast Maxine Peake, Politkovskaya is often difficult, but always acutely human. She is also more right than wrong, at least on the big-picture issues.

If you don’t know how it ends, then the Kremlin would like to commend you on your choice of news sources. For the rest of us who understand what is coming, it still lands as a gut-punch, because it is so cold and cruel. We can’t say we weren’t warned. What happened to Politkovskaya happened to Navalny and the war crimes committed in Chechnya were repeated in Ukraine.

Kompromat: How the FSB Operates

Westerners working in Russia (and also China) take note. If a French diplomat running the Siberian Alliance Française is not safe from the FSB’s so-called “Kompromat” frame-ups, you aren’t either. Leave while you can. Transparently inspired by the real-life Yoann Barbereau, the thinly fictionalized Mathieu Roussel finds himself the subject of a coordinated campaign to ruin his reputation and falsely imprison him. However, the soft, decadent Westerner turns out to be a surprisingly resourceful fugitive in Jerome Salle’s Kompromat, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Admittedly, Roussel makes some highly questionable decisions early on. First he moves his wife and young daughter to Irkutsk, because he believes spending time together in Siberia will heal his ailing marriage. Then, he stages an explicitly LGBTQ-themed dance performance for a gala attended by his local oligarch sponsors and government contacts. It does not go over well. To cap things off, during the reception afterwards, Roussel openly flirts with Svetlana Rostova, who is married to Sacha, a disabled Chechnya veteran, who also happens to be the son of the local FSB commander.

Shortly thereafter, Roussel is arrested on dubious molestation charges and held virtually incommunicado. After several harrowing weeks in prison (first getting beaten to a pulp in general population and then moved to solitary, for his own “protection”), he is finally granted house arrest, but this is obviously just another stage of the ongoing Kompromat (that is the FSB's official term for such operations).

Even the attorney hired by the consulate (one of the few honest criminal advocates still practicing) indirectly suggests Roussel should make a run for it, but he can only trust Svetlana (whom co-screenwriter Caryl Ferey named in honor of exiled Belarusian Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich) will dare to help him. In fact, she already saved his life by delivering food for Roussel, while he was held in solitary.

Salle’s depiction of Russian prisons is maybe just slightly more horrific than you already assumed.  However, the film soon settles into a ripping good chase thriller that also opens a revealing window into the state of today’s Russia. It is a land where half the population uncritically believes whatever the state media tells them, while the other half only communicates through encrypted apps like Telegram, due to fear of the pervasive state surveillance.

So, if you are an American still working in China, take note of the clever ways Roussel uses burner phones and carpooling/ride-share apps to evade the FSB dragnet. (Again, if you think this couldn’t happen to you, ask Mark Swidan about his recent experiences.) This is smart stuff, clearly based on reality.

Anastasia, on Paramount+

Putin's MO is to make the most vulnerable in his country suffer for the perceived slights of others. In retribution for the Magnitsky Act, Putin banned all American adoptions of Russian orphans, including those already in process, even though Russia has one of the world’s lowest adoption rates. Anastasia Shevchenko’s oldest daughter Alina was also a victim of Putin’s vengeful pettiness, because of her mother’s political activism (officially proclaimed “undesirable”). Shevchenko was sentenced to two years house arrest and strictly prevented from visiting the severely disabled Alina as her health declined in a Russian hospital. Finally at liberty, Shevchenko travels with her family to scatter Alina’s ashes in Sarah McCarthy’s short documentary, Anastasia, which premieres tomorrow on Paramount+.

Presumably, McCarthy would agree with the assertion Alina and the Russian orphans denied the opportunity of U.S. adoption are all innocent collateral victims of Putin’s wrath, since she also helmed The Dark Matter of Love, which documented the plight of so-called “Pipeline Babies,” whose American adoptions were canceled, despite being well into the process. It is a subject you should raise with any ostensibly “pro-family” politician who voices support for Putin. In Shevchenko’s case, she dearly wished to visit Alina, but the government forbade it—and then pilloried her in the state media for choosing politics over her daughter.

After two years, Shevchenko, her young son Misha, teen daughter Vlada, and her own mother, can now travel to disburse Alina’s ashes. They cannot say so openly, but in addition to saying goodbye to Alina, they will also be saying goodbye to Russia. Post-McCarthy’s filming, Shevchenko is now living in Lithuania, having been branded a “fugitive from justice” by the Russian authorities.

Once Upon a Time in Londongrad, on Peacock

London needs to lose its suffixes. In 2006, Melanie Phillips described the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in her expose, Londonistan. Since then, the term “Londongrad” was coined to describe the London financial sector’s role as a safe haven for dirty Russian oligarchs’ money. Neither is a good look for the capitol of a major Western democracy. Unfortunately, that influx of dubious Russian money also led to a number of Russian state-sanctioned assassinations on British soil. The Buzzfeed journalists who broke the story connect the dots in the six-part Once Upon a Time in Londongrad, which premieres tomorrow on Peacock.

According to the Metropolitan Police, Scot (with one “t”) Young killed himself by leaping from his fashionable townhouse window, just like his associate, Boris Berezovsky also committed suicide. Anyone who knows anything about contemporary Russian politics finds the latter contention laughable. As a dissident, the former oligarch Berezovsky was one of Putin’s most prominent critics. He helped facilitate the defection of former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, whom even New Scotland Yard agrees was poisoned with polonium.

For journalist Heidi Blake, the story started with the strange circumstances surrounding Young’s death. She and her colleagues were not even thinking of Russia, until they found multiple connections to Berezovsky in Young’s records. From there, they followed leads, the way the Metropolitan police should have.

Eventually, the team explains how they linked fourteen mysterious deaths to Russia, including Young, Berezovsky, and Litvinenko. Perhaps the weirdest case is that of Gareth Williams, a MI6 code-breaker, whom the London cops concluded committed suicide, by stuffing himself in a gym bag and locking it from the outside. Seriously, they stand by that farcical position.

Obviously, something is rotten in London, starting with the Metropolitan force. Yet, Blake and her colleagues were largely dismissed as alarmists and conspiracy theorists, until Russian defector Sergei Skripal, his daughter, and a police officer were poisoned with a Russian Novichuk nerve agent, which also murdered an innocent bystander.

Sundance ’22: Navalny

Anna Politkovskaya. Boris Nemtsov. Alexander Litvinenko. Alexei Navalny was supposed to join their names on the list of Putin critics who met conveniently early deaths. However, he survived to expose his would-be assassins. In a fitting irony, the Kremlin officially declared him a “terrorist” yesterday, mere hours before Daniel Roher’s documentary Navalny, an up-close chronicle of his recovery and return to Russia, premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

Nobody was really surprised when Navalny was arrested returning to his Russian homeland in early 2021, least of Navalny. As viewers can see in the film’s early scenes, Navalny was a master of social media, who built a large and enthusiastic following throughout Russia, especially with younger generations (you can see them in Alexandra Dalsbaek’s doc, We Are Russia). Odds are he could easily unseat Putin in a legitimately fair election, but that is not how the president-for-life plays the game.

Navalny always knew he was a threat, but he assumed his prominence would protect him. He was wrong, as he readily admits to Roher. In August of the super-fun year of 2020, agents of the FSB (what the KGB is now called) poisoned him with the nerve agent Novichok (dubbed “LP9” by the Russians). We really do know that because of an investigation conducted by Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev and Maria Pevchikh of Anti-Corruption Foundation (founded by Navalny). Viewers hear from them a lot in the documentary and what they have to say is fascinating. Yet, Navalny himself was able to secure independent verification in a spectacularly dramatic fashion.

Those who have followed Navalny’s case might already know he cold-called one of his attempted-assassins, who basically confirmed everything over the phone. It is an absolutely electric, jaw-dropping scene that has to be seen to be believed. Some of that footage (that was shot by Roher and Niki Waltl, one of three cinematographers on the project) is already in the public sphere, but the full context makes it even more gripping.

Of course, it was uncertain whether Navalny would even live that long. The sequences covering his poisoning are also quite intense and profoundly troubling. It is easy to see how scared the Navalny family was, as they fought the suspiciously obstructionist Novosibirsk hospital for access to Navalny. There is plenty there too that demands to be seen by the world at large. However, Roher does his best to keep the Navalnys’ privates lives private, but it is hard to maintain a hard-and-fast firewall for a subject that was poisoned by Novichok and returns to Russia to face likely (and unjust) incarceration.

DOC NYC ’21: F@ck This Job

State media really isn’t media. It is PR for their regime masters. They do not reporter the news, they slant it and spike it if necessary. Putin thought he had rid himself of the last vestiges of an independent media until Natalya Sindeyeva founded Dozhd. Originally, she had something more pop culture-ish in mind, but she discovered her calling when Dozhd started reporting stories no other Russian outlet would touch. Vera Krichevskaya documents the struggle to keep Dozhd on the air in F@ck This Job, which screens as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

In the 2000s, the hard-partying Sindeyeva married Aleksandr Vinokurov, a blue-blooded financial tycoon, who could buy her anything. She decided she wanted a TV station. Initially, Dozhd was probably intended to be something like post-music video MTV, but when they covered a mysterious explosion all the other networks ignored, a lightbulb clicked on.

A flirtation with “President” Medvedev led to a temporary break with Krichevskaya (yet ironically, the figurehead comes out of the doc looking relatively moderate compared to Putin). However, coverage of the subsequent election protests and disavowed Russian military incursions into Ukraine soon re-established Dozhd as Russia’s independent media voice. In the process, they earned millions of viewers and a concerted harassment campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin.

At times, Sindeyeva can be her own worst enemy. There is no question her privileged background sometimes renders her a bit tone deaf. However, that is also what makes her a compelling figure. She could have partied the years away in comfort, but instead she and Vinokurov have dedicated their fortune and risked their liberty to expose the truth.

DOC NYC ’21: We Are Russia

You would expect it would make American headline news if an opposition party in a large influential country arrived at their headquarters one morning to find the doors locked, the door knobs removed, and iron bars freshly installed over their windows. To make matters worse, one of their volunteers was locked inside with the people who had performed this surprise renovation. This is exactly what happened in Moscow, but our media is only interested in Putin in connection with conspiracy theories regarding Trump collusion. By the way, the kicker was the only person to face prosecution after this abuse of power was the innocent campaign worker trapped inside. He was a friend of the youthful activists documentarian Alexandra Dalsbaek followed when they took Navalny’s 2018 presidential campaign to the streets in We Are Russia, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

There are no talking heads in WAR and no dry backgrounders. If you don’t know who Putin is by now and how profoundly undemocratic his imperial presidency has been, I think you’re an idiot and Dalsbaek probably does too. Regardless, if you don’t get it by now, you will after watching these kids’ experiences (one of the Navalny volunteers is only sixteen).

When we first see Milena and her friends protesting, their efforts look almost negligible by American standards. One of them merely stands in front of government building holding a sign not much larger than a sheet of notebook paper, while the other two film and post on social media. Yet, time and time again, they get hassled and often even arrested by the cops.

In fact, Dalsbaek’s film makes it clear Putin’s Russia is, by any standard or definition, a true police state. It is impossible to effectively campaign for legit opposition candidates and those who try and inevitably arrested and prosecuted. It is hard to imagine the deafening outrage if western democracies kept their accused in cages during trial, but it is standard practice in Russia.

First and foremost, these activists deserve all kinds of credit for the guts and commitment they display. Fearless Milena even tries to hold her sign in front of FSB headquarters, prompting a police response in seconds (literally). They are risking their [relative] liberty and perhaps even their lives for a better government and a brighter future.

Citizen K: The Khodorkovsky Epic

So far, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s life has been the stuff of a Russian epic. He went from being the archetypal oligarch to the archetypal prisoner of conscience. Naturally, Putin’s propaganda machine continues to do its best to slander him, so it is good to have a timely and up-to-date chronicle of his life and struggles thus far. Prolific documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney never refrains from airing criticism of his subject, especially during his early 90’s “Wild West” years, but that strengthens his credibility when he turns his focus on the lawless and oppressive behavior of Russian President-for-life Vladimir Putin in Citizen K, which opens this Wednesday in New York.

Khodorkovsky admittedly pushed the envelop when he assumed control of the Russian oil company Yukos during the dodgy privatization process, but if he hadn’t taken over the state enterprise, another oligarch would have, resulting in even greater concentration of economic power. At least former state employees started getting paid again. In fact, it was the responsibility Khodorkovsky started feeling toward his employees that led to the awakening of his social conscience. First, he became a philanthropist and then he started campaigning for democracy and transparency, at which point he came into fateful conflict with Putin.

The trumped-up case against Khodorkovsky was well documented in Cyril Tuschi’s Khodorkovsky and Cathryn Collins’ Vlast (Power), but Gibney retells in compellingly, filling in some gaps and bringing it up to date. He asks some tough questions that Khodorkovsky answers quite forthrightly. Unlike, Aung San Suu Kyi, Khodorkovsky has maintained his claim to the moral high ground during the years after his release. Indeed, the Western media was shockingly negligent in its lack of coverage of Khodorkovsky’s trip to the Ukraine in support of the democracy movement in the days following the Kremlin-backed government’s siege of Maidan Square (but that was during the Obama administration, when they didn’t care about Russia).

Gibney’s regular doc audiences will probably be most interested in Russia in relation to its campaigns of disinformation and electoral interference. There are sequences in Citizen K that address such issues, but he always maintains a direct connection to his subject. Frankly, it is frightening to hear how many provincial Russians have bought Putin’s big lies (particularly Khodorkovsky’s alleged role in supposedly ordering the assassination of a Siberian mayor long assumed to be the work of Chechen gangsters, until Putin’s state media changed its story, on command).

Indeed, the most pressing take-away from Citizen K could very well be the implications of what the term “state media” means in practical applications. It is frightening how easily people can be deceived (of course, if you do not follow a few outlets that do not share your politics, you are essentially brainwashing yourself—Trump-lovers and Trump-haters alike).

CIFF ’18: Putin’s Witnesses

It was a scene worthy of the third Omen movie. Late in the evening on New Year’s Eve, 1999, Boris Yeltsin announced his resignation as president of Russia and the elevation of his successor Vladimir Putin—the new “strong hand” for a new millennium. Neither Russia nor the rest of the world realized what his elevation and subsequent election meant at the time, but maybe we shouldn’t judge ourselves too harshly. Vitaly Mansky only had an inkling of how bad things could get, even though repeatedly filmed Putin up close and personal for a series of documentaries broadcast on Russian state television. Mansky still had all his raw footage, so he was able to reassemble it into an eerie chronicle of Putin’s solidification of power. Hindsight is disconcertingly spooky in Mansky’s Putin’s Witnesses (trailer here), which screens as part of a mini-Mansky retrospective at the 2018 Camden International Film Festival.

Mansky is no stranger to controversy. He rather ticked off two oppressive regimes when he turned the Russian financed puff piece he was supposed to be shooting in the DPRK into Under the Sun, an expose of the pariah nation’s propaganda techniques. He now resides in Latvia. Putin’s Witnesses will make it even more difficult for him to return to his homeland for the foreseeable future.

At times, the fly-on-the-wall footage Mansky captured is just jaw-dropping. We see in no uncertain terms how Putin’s campaign team staged events for the benefit of the complaint state media, like the supposedly spontaneous visit to his beloved grey-hair elementary teacher (actually, that was Mansky’s idea). It also clearly contradicts the notion that Putin was too busy with affairs of state to engage in a traditional campaign.

Simultaneously, Mansky was also working on profiles of Yeltsin, so he has ample footage of the late president and his family reacting to his hand-picked successor electoral victory and the early months of his first full term. As you might expect, their initial elation gives way to pronounced disappointment. Yet, easily the most telling sequence in the film occurs during election night at the Putin campaign war room, allowing Mansky to explain how nearly the entire inner circle have now joined the opposition or died under mysterious circumstances.

Arguably, the most important (and under-reported in Western media) events Mansky documents involve Putin’s re-embrace of Soviet anthems, banners, and iconography. It is pretty surreal to watch Nikita Mikhalkov, the director of Burnt by the Sun, and his composer father de-Communizing an old Soviet marching dirge, but Mansky has the footage to prove it happened. Frankly, every conservative drinking Trump’s Russian Kool-Aid needs to see this film. Remember Reagan and the Cold War? The Gipper would recognize Putin for exactly what he is: a tyrant and a dangerous enemy of the Free World.

Like Under the Sun, Putin’s Witnesses is a pretty gutsy work of documentary filmmaking. What really distinguishes the latter from other Putin docs is the way Mansky ruthlessly judges his own culpability. He had misgivings about the former KGB agent right from the start, but he still participated in Putin’s PR campaign. Yet, if someone else had done it, the world would most likely never have the chance to see this footage. Editor Gunta Ikere also deserves enormous credit for helping shape Mansky’s footage into such an urgent and compelling narrative. We see, slowly but surely, how democracy is undermined and freedom is lost. Very highly recommended, Putin’s Witnesses screens Friday evening (9/14), as part of this year’s CIFF.

Hunting the KGB Killers: The Litvinenko Case on Acorn TV

He was a British subject, assassinated on British soil, by a foreign power, employing the most radioactive substance known to man. Wars have been started over lesser provocations. It is inconceivable an operation of that magnitude could be executed without the direct consent of Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. The mere acquisition of Polonium 210 would require coordination at the highest levels of government. Yet, we can confidently ascribe responsibility to Putin and his henchmen, because Litvinenko himself worked with Scotland Yard to solve his own murder during his final hours. The high stakes investigation and Russian’s attempts to cover-up the truth are conclusively revealed in the documentary-special, Hunting the KGB Killers, directed by Chris Malone, which starts streaming on Acorn TV tomorrow.

Litvinenko has been closely linked with Chechen dissidents, but his real role in the FSB (the renamed KGB) is often conveniently overlooked. According to Litvinenko (whose credibility has been tragically established beyond reasonable doubt), he was promoted to a secret division of the FSB responsible for assassinating the Kremlin’s political and economic rivals. Obviously, it is still in business. Ill-advisedly, Litvinenko had called a meeting with the newly elected Putin, hoping the president would halt such abuses. Instead, he had to defect to the UK with his wife Marina and their son Anatoly, who address Litvinenko’s assassination on-camera for the first time in KGB Killers.

Lead investigator DI Brian Tarpey takes viewers through his inquiry, step-by-step, starting with a meeting with an unnamed MI5 agent, who turned out to be Litvinenko’s handler. With his identity confirmed, the dying Litvinenko willingly submitted to a “living autopsy” to determine the agent of his poisoning. When Polonium-210 was determined to be the cause of his impending death, it unleashed a hard target search through the London establishments he frequented, as well as a very real public health scare. Tarpey’s team even journeyed to Russia, where they were stonewalled and also poisoned with more benign gastrointestinal bacteria.

Although its running time clocks in just under an hour, KGB Killers is packed with stunning information. Frankly, it is an outrage that the world is not more outraged over this crime. Russian apologists and stooges have used a lot of disinformation and red herrings to distract the western media from the fundamental issues. This was a British subject, who was cooperating with western intelligence and law enforcement agencies to expose Russian crime syndicates linked to Putin and his oligarch cronies.

The respect Tarpey and his colleagues have for Litvinenko comes through loud and clear. The details on their dogged pursuit of the murderers, Anjdrey Lugovoy (now a member of Russia’s parliament and hence immune from prosecution) and Dmitri Kovtun, is also highly instructive. Although the iconic photo of the emaciated Litvinenko is often shown during KGB Killers, Malone also uses dramatic re-enactments of the whistle-blower’s final days. Documentary purists might have mixed feelings on such a strategy, but it must be conceded Andrew Byron (a bit-player in Wonder Woman) is an eerie dead-ringer for Litvinenko. Eddie Marsan’s narration is also totally professional and gives the film some name-recognition (if star-power is too strong a term).

KGB Killers is a seamless chronicle that will shock viewers with the full magnitude and viciousness of the FSB’s crimes under Putin. Yet, it also keeps the human element in perspective through the memories of the surviving Litvinenkos and the Scotland Yard investigators. It is a film all Americans should watch, starting with the president.

Let’s be honest, the West’s triumph over Communism during the Cold War was also the greatest political victory in the history of the right/left divide. Yet, Trump seems determined to retroactively sabotage that victory, by openly courting the Soviets’ successor in spirit and oppressive practice. He is not just compromising American national security. He is also jeopardizing the legacy of the American conservative movement. Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, and Barry Goldwater must be weeping bitter tears in their graves.

To get a sense of who Putin really is, Hunting the KGB Killers is very highly recommended when it launches on Acorn TV tomorrow (8/14).

DFW ’17: To the Moon and Back

Today’s Russia is a truly Dickensian nation, rife with orphanages, where special needs children are consigned to lives of institutional anonymity and often times abuse. These innocents have been victimized several times over by macro forces outside their control, starting with the lingering Soviet prejudices against those not fully able-bodied and labor-ready and most recently by Commiczar Putin’s ban on American adoptions. Susan Morgan Cooper chronicles the events that led up to the adoption ban and introduces viewers to the children and parents who have been cruelly separated in To the Moon and Back (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Dances with Films.

For propaganda purposes, the adoption ban legislation was named the Dima Yakovlev Law, in reference to Chase Dmitri Harrison, a Russian toddler adopted by a Virginia couple, who tragically died a few months after arriving in America. Cooper does not try to sweep the circumstances of his death under the rug. Instead, she interviews the still-grieving Harrisons at great length about their adoption process, their brief life together, and his sad passing. Granted, it is easy to demonize Miles Harrison in a kneejerk way for forgetting his son in their hot car on a particularly stressful morning, but the Russian system also bears responsibility for the under-development of his vocal and communication skills. Regardless, the Harrisons were more devastated by his death than any of the posturing Russian nationalists.

Thanks to cruel fate and Vladimir Putin, Bill Browder is linked to their story. He was one of the first investment bankers to set up a Russian fund and became an outspoken advocate of financial transparency. For obvious reasons, this did not sit well with Putin, who expelled Browder and plundered his company. Much to his regret, Browder retained the idealistic attorney-auditor Sergei Magnitsky to document the crimes carried out by the Putin government. Magnitsky’s subsequent arrest, torture, and prison death by bludgeoning would inspire the Magnitsky Bill, which froze the assets and banned entry to eighteen Russian officials complicit in the death of Magnitsky and the looting he had investigated.

Naturally, Putin had to retaliate, so he sacrificed the most vulnerable Russians to do so, using Harrison and a handful of other cases (out of thousands) as a pretext. Cooper interviews many prospective parents whose adoptions were cancelled, even though they had already been approved by the authorities and bounded with their children.

Clearly, these kids are the biggest losers from Putin’s churlish power play. There is virtually no domestic adoption within Russia, especially for special needs children. Without the possibility of

American adoption, they truly have no realistic hope of a future. Yet, perhaps most chillingly, the film also illustrates how an authoritarian regime can cynically exploit an isolated incident for purposes of propaganda and distraction.

To the Moon is often agonizingly difficult to watch. From a viewers’ perspective, the Harrisons’ pain is almost unbearable to witness. Yet, the agony and anger of parents whose late-stage adoptions were abruptly canceled are nearly as raw and visceral. The documentary also provides a genuine public service with its clear and compelling explanation of the Magnitsky affair, scoring a long, frank interview with Browder.

Taking its title from one of the would-be adoptive parent’s expression of love, To the Moon is one of the most emotionally devastating exposes you will see all year. However, it is nice to see Sen. John McCain leading the fight for greater human rights accountability in Russia, especially considering the unfathomable affection for Putin expressed by our supposedly Republican president. Indeed, this is one of the most critically timely documentaries currently on the festival circuit. It really ought to be at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival too, but that fest has apparently lost its way and its soul. Very highly recommended, To the Moon and Back screens tomorrow (6/9), as part of this year’s Dances with Films, in downtown Hollywood.

Sundance ’17: Icarus

Unlike most subjects of documentaries premiering at Sundance this year, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov was not available for post-screening Q&A’s. That is because he is in Witness Protection. Dr. Rodchenkov and the Federal government believed he was targeted by the Putin regime for assassination, perhaps much like several of his colleagues who suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. Before he went underground, Dr. Rodchenkov told his story to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and filmmaker Bryan Fogel. As a result, Fogel radically reshaped his proposed doping documentary into the riveting expose, Icarus, which screens during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

As a high-performing amateur cyclist, Fogel originally conceived the film as a guerilla chronicle of his undercover attempt to conduct his own doping regimen in the mode of Lance Armstrong. He was referred to Dr. Rodchenkov, because the director of the Russian Anti-Doping Center was considered sufficiently maverick to serve as Fogel’s advisor. As Fogel and Rodchenkov develop trust and rapport, rumors start to swirl regarding the legitimacy of Russia’s record medal haul at the Sochi games. Soon, Dr. Rodchenkov is directly implicated in those allegations. At that point, the doctor levels with Fogel: he oversaw a systemic doping campaign across all sports on the direct orders of Putin’s trusted deputies. He now fears for his own life.

In the scenes that follow, Icarus becomes the film CitizenFour was hyped to be, but can’t hold a candle to. After assisting Dr. Rodchenkov’s escape to America, Fogel engineers the release of his story to the press and WADA. Dr. Rodchenkov packed light, but he wisely brought along hard drives and cell phones loaded with proof.

Icarus is shocking in many ways, starting with how poorly Dr. Rodchenkov’s story was reported in the West. We mostly just accepted news of the Russian doping scandal as par for the course, following in the alleged tradition of the old school Communist Olympic training machines. However, the “smoking gun” conclusiveness of Dr. Rodchenkov’s evidence is stunning. Yet, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) chose to ignore it, presumably out of deference to Putin’s vodka and caviar. Aside from Putin and his FSB enforcers, the biggest villain in Icarus is undoubtedly Thomas Bach, the cravenly hypocritical IOC president.

Unlike Snowden (with whom Dr. Rodchenkov is directly compared with), viewers can feel the Russian whistleblower’s life is constantly in palpable danger during the doc’s second and third acts. Yet, there are even graver stakes involved. Fogel trenchantly points out Putin invaded Ukraine while riding a wave a nationalist popularity largely based on Russia’s Sochi triumphs.

Granted, there is a little too much of Fogel doing prep work for his original conception of the documentary, with him in the center. However, once the focus shifts to Dr. Rodchenkov, the film becomes taut, tense, suspenseful, and downright revelatory. This is truly gutsy documentary filmmaking. Icarus could very well be the motivation for the hacking of this year’s Sundance, if it was not the Chinese Communist Party in retribution for the screenings of the outstanding Joshua: Teenager vs.Superpower. (Such scenarios might sound petty, but that is how dictatorships roll.) Very highly recommended, Icarus screens today (1/26) at the Sundance Mountain Resort and this Saturday (1/28) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance.

Fantasia ’16: Pyotr495 (short)

Welcome to Russia, semi-permanent home of the China-Putin-Zika Games, formerly known as the Olympics. Vladimir Putin hopes you enjoy your stay, unless you happen to be gay. In that case, you’d best not come, unless you want to risk life and limb. Having prohibited LGBT “propaganda” and given license to his brutish supporters to bash away, Putin has deliberately fostered a climate of fear and intimidation. However, the uncertainty of blind hook-ups cuts both ways in Blake Mawson’s short film Pyotr495 (trailer here), which screened during the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Pyotr is usually careful, but he still wants to live some semblance of a life. After exchanging a series of texts with the muscular Sergei, he agrees to meet the stranger in his Moscow apartment. It turns out Pyotr should have done more due diligence on Sergei—and he really should not have admitted nobody knew he was there. Unfortunately, Sergei and his gay-bashing friends have their own humiliating plans for Pyotr. However, there is more to their intended victim than they realize. After all, it wasn’t programmed at Fantasia for nothing.

Pyotr495 is an extraordinarily dark and tense short that portrays Putin’s Russia as a horror film in the style of the Hostel franchise, until it takes a satisfying EC Comics turn. Alex Ozerov was rather underwhelming in the generally problematic Natasha, but he redeems himself as Pyotr. As his tormentors, Max Rositsan and Juliana Semenova truly personify the dark side of human nature. Technically, Putin never appears in Pyotr495, but he still deserves credit for making it frighteningly believable.

This is the sort of short that can transcend resistance to its format and generate some far-ranging discussions. Of course, it is not just LGBT Russians who are at risk from the Putin regime. The film duly notes in its opening titles, the Russia military has invaded the sovereign territory of Ukraine. Tightly executed and all too timely, Pyotr495 was easily one of the best shorts at this year’s Fantasia.

NYJFF ’15: Cinema: a Public Affair

The Moscow State Central Cinema Museum was not just a vitally important Russian cultural institution. It was also the canary in the coal mine. During late Perestroika and the early Yeltsin years, the Museum’s cinematheque became a catalyst for open debate and the free exchange of ideas. Those days ended with Putin’s rise to power. Evicted from their stately building, the Museum’s legendary director Naum Kleiman valiantly held the Museum’s staff and programming together until he was pushed out by the cultural ministry. Kleiman takes stock of his losing battles and the grim outlook for Russian civil society in Tatiana Brandrup’s Cinema: a Public Affair (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 New York Jewish Film Festival.

Kleiman really gets to the nub of the issue in the film’s opening seconds, arguing Russia has always lacked social institutions strong enough to counterbalance the perennially domineering state. In its own small way, the Moscow Film Museum was instituted to address this imbalance. Initially, Kleiman only reluctantly accepted the directorship, hoping to return soon to his position with the Sergei Eisenstein archive.

You can’t get much more Soviet than “Eysen,” as they call him, but for Kleiman and several museum staffers, the notoriously banned Ivan the Terrible Part 2 is his true touchstone film. Frankly, it is a minor miracle Putin’s flunkies have not renewed Stalin’s prohibition. After all, they have forbidden the public exhibition of films with cursing.

Clearly, nobody understands the erosion of Russian freedoms of thought and expression as keenly as Kleiman, yet he remains a reasonably happy warrior. His enthusiasm for cinema remains infectious and undiminished. For obvious reasons, he is the focal point of Brandrup’s documentary, but he never gets dull. He often relates to films under discussion on multiple levels, simultaneously. The precise details of how the Museum was dispossessed remain murky, apparently as the parties involved intended. However, Brandrup and the Museum partisans openly identify one particularly duplicitous figure, besides Putin. That would be Nikita Mikhalkov, the chairman of the directors’ union.

Somehow Public Affair manages to be rapturously heady when addressing the transformational virtues of cinema and bracingly candid (if not downright depressing) when illuminating the state of Russian personal liberties (or the lack thereof). Arguably, Kleiman is lucky to be alive. If you doubt it, just ask Boris Nemtsov or Anna Politkovskaya. By turns charming, compelling, and deeply galling, Cinema: a Public Affair is the can’t-miss high point of this year’s NYJFF. Very highly recommended, it screens this coming Tuesday night (1/19) and Wednesday afternoon (1/20), at the Walter Reade Theater.

ArtDocFest/Riga: Grozny Blues

Taita Yunusova was released a mere nineteen hours after she was abducted. She would know better than most how fortunate she was. Yunusova is one of four middle-aged women independently documenting the horrors of the Chechen Wars and the subsequent human rights violations of Putin’s puppet, Ramzan Kadyrov. Although no longer held captive, you wouldn’t exactly say Yunusova and her colleagues are “safe.” However, by selecting Nicola Bellucci’s Grozny Blues, in which they prominently appear, for their fifteen film documentary shortlist, the European Film Academy will help spread awareness of the activists and the constant danger they face. Fittingly, Grozny Blues (clip here) screens this coming Wednesday at the Riga International Film Festival, as one of the ArtDocFest selections programmer Vitaly Mansky doubted he could present in Moscow under the current regime.

Yunusova, Zargan Makhadzhieva, Tais Titieva, and the exiled Zainap Gaishaeva do not look like independent filmmakers, but they document the devastation of their country and the oral history of grieving family members, because someone has to do it. In many ways, they are living in a hostile environment. Like a lord currying favor with his emperor, Kadyrov demands Chechens kowtow to the despised Putin. Increasingly, he uses stringent Islamification policies to maintain control, even while Putin uses the specter of Islamic terror to justify his harsh pacification campaigns. Chechnya is a man’s world, affording little rights to the four citizen archivists, but it is an old man’s world, since most of the younger generations were wiped out in the Chechen Wars.

Frankly, Bellucci’s approach is less authoritative than that of his subjects. Instead of facts and figures, he prefers to give viewers an impressionistic sense of life in Grozny and the surrounding provinces. It was probably quite picturesque once, but the many bombed out buildings and the massive public portraits of Kadyrov and Putin are an ever-present blight on the country.

We also get to meet the Chechen Archive’s neighbor, the Blues Brothers Café. Arguably, the proprietor is just as idealistic and even more impractical than Yunusova and company. After all, he is trying to run a legit, no heavy metal or grunge, blue club in Grozny. Of course, the system is stacked against him too. He has discovered a promising young talent, but as a woman, she cannot perform in his club after five o’clock.

You might say Bellucci’s style is observational and maybe even a little roundabout, but he clearly understands what he is seeing. When you listen to the women explain their trials and tribulations, including a shotgun marriage to avoid legal problems, it exposes Putin’s rhetoric as the propaganda it is. There is definitely terrorism going on, but most of it is conducted by the Kayrov’s militias. Likewise, since the dramatic Grozny-City Towers fire seen briefly in the film was attributed to safety violations, it probably can also be traced back to the notoriously corrupt regime.

Instead of a formal indictment, Grozny Blues is like a mastercut of small, telling moments all spliced together. By going micro, we see just how systemically dysfunctional the Chechen Republic has become. As its subjects become more widely known internationally, they will probably be less likely disappear in the dark of night. Therefore, the mesmerizing and alarming Grozny Blues is recommended with considerable urgency when it screens this Wednesday (10/21) during ArtDocFest/Riga.

Children 404: According to Putin, They Don’t Exist

The Sochi Winter Olympics was an ugly spectacle of shoulder shrugging and hand wringing, as the IOC and western media tried to pretend Russia never passed its “anti-gay propaganda law.” Russian military adventurism in Ukraine should make the 2018 World Cup an even more awkward affair. However, in FIFA’s defense, the caviar and swag were surely tremendous, so what matters a small trifle like human rights?

Yet thanks to Elena Klimova and her “Children 404” online forum and support network, the kids Putin, the IOC, and FIFA wishes would simply disappear have a venue to express themselves. Askold Kurov & Pavel Loparev document Klimova’s work and the disenfranchised kids served by her efforts in Children 404 (trailer here), which screens tomorrow in New York as part of the Eye on World Issues film series.

Essentially, Klimova inherited the 404 name inspired by internet error messages from a sympathetic media report on LGBT teens suffering from a drastic escalation of harassment following passage of Putin’s “propaganda” ban. While The Guardian might parse the language of the bill and decide it isn’t so bad after all, teens like Pasha paint a very different picture. As he unequivocally testifies, his peers made it very clear—if he embraced his sexuality to any extent, they would consider it illegal and subject to schoolyard punishment. When reporting their threats to school administrators, he was essentially told it was his fault for being so prejudiced against homophobes.

404 is often a jarring film, but it operates almost exclusively on the micro level, focusing solely on the bullied kids and never offering any macro analysis. Rarely do the filmmakers even confront the abuse abetting teachers and counselors, let alone the government officials who passed and enforce the law—something that is admittedly much easier to say than do. Nevertheless, it is a timely and defiant film that fully captures the casual homophobia (and Communist nostalgia) that Putin shamelessly panders to. They also caught some extraordinarily telling moments, such as Pasha’s subversive visit to the Lenin museum (which certainly appears to be promoting President-for-Life Putin).

So when the World Cup kicks off in Russia, everyone should be fully aware it is being hosted by a bullyocracy, where weaker citizens and neighbors, like LGBT kids and Ukraine are victimized to distract the general population from the country’s stagnating industrial base, rampant corruption, and appalling human rights record. The world can no longer plead ignorance thanks to the work of Klimova and the cinematic journalism of Kurov and Loparev. Recommended for anyone concerned about international LGBT rights and the state of neo-Soviet Russia, Children 404 screens tomorrow (9/4) in New York at the Village East.

Sundance ’13: Pussy Riot—A Punk Prayer

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is currently in prison for protesting the collusion between church and state.  She also has a long history of demonstrating on behalf of women’s issues.  One would think her face would be on countless hipsters’ t-shirts.  Given her supermodel looks, her likeness would certainly be more appealing than ugly old Che.  However, Tolokonnikova and the other members of her punk rock band were objecting to the authoritarian Putin regime’s increasingly brazen abuses of power.  It might not interest professional activists in the West, but their ongoing plight is as dramatic as true stories get.  The persecution of Russia’s most famous underground band is documented in Mike Lerner & Maxim Pozdorovkin’s Pussy Riot—A Punk Prayer, which screens during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

Sort of like a real world version of the musical tricksters seen in Simonsson & Nilsson’s films, the balaclava-donning Pussy Riot specialized in provocative, unannounced public performances.  Critical of both the Putin regime and traditional Russian patriarchal (or chauvinistic) attitudes, their lyrics have always been pointedly political.  While they certainly ruffled some feathers before, Pussy Riot’s decision to crash Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior was admittedly a profound miscalculation. 

While the thirty second performance was intended as a political commentary on the open alliance between the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin’s government, the resulting outrage amongst the faithful allowed prosecutors to come down on band with the full force of the state.  Soon thereafter, Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were behind bars, facing trial on vaguely defined charges.

The reasonably well informed should know the broad strokes of the regime’s campaign against Pussy Riot, but Lerner & Pozdorovkin give viewers a look beneath their brightly colored hoods.  Over the course of the doc, the audience learns the three imprisoned musicians are deeply steeped in the contemporary art scene and earnestly committed to causes like environmentalism and democratic reform.  Far from being the maladjusted delinquents of state-sponsored propaganda, they are profoundly influenced by supportive, well educated fathers, who are quite compelling during their on-camera interview segments.

Sadly, Pussy Riot will not be performing at Sundance’s ASCAP Music Café.  Although the story is still developing, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina still remain behind bars.  Indeed, Lerner & Pozdorovkin illuminate the twists and turns of the case quite well, while eschewing voice-over narration.  Frightening and infuriating, Pussy Riot—A Punk Prayer is arguably the most important film selected at this year’s Sundance.  It is very highly recommended when it screens again today (1/20), Wednesday (1/23), and Thursday (1/24) in Park City.  However, it should also be a call for action.  For starters, every Russian filmmaker who attends a western film festival should be asked to comment, as a fellow artist, on Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina’s continued imprisonment.

First Look ’13: Winter, Go Away

Ten graduate students from Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov’s Documentary Filmmaking and Theater School did what the Russian media establishment was largely incapable of.  They covered the 2012 Russian presidential election and the surrounding protests fairly and accurately.  Inseparable from their cameras over the dramatic two month span, the ten budding documentarians captured some chilling moments of “democracy at work” in Winter, Go Away (trailer here), which screens this Saturday in Astoria, Queens, as part the Museum of the Moving Image’s second annual First Look film series.

For the record, the ten filmmakers are: Elena Khoreva, Denis Klebleev, Dmitry Kubasov, Askold Kurov, Nadezhda Leonteva, Anna Moiseenko, Madina Mustafina, Sofia Rodkevich, Anton Seregin, and Alexey Zhiryakov. Remember those names (that’s a dare).  Although none of Winter’s scenes are specifically credited to a contributing filmmaker, the sheer volume of newsworthy footage speaks highly of them as a group.

Two painful realities quickly emerge in Winter.  The Putin campaign is highly organized, while the divided opposition is not. With the not-so-quasi state media firmly in his pocket, Putin probably need not have fixed the election.  Yet, it is pretty darn clear he did exactly that, based on the video recorded in poll sites on election. 

Obviously cooking the voter rolls, local election officials refuse to turn over documentation to poll watchers.  Mysterious buses show up with ostensive voters, who are a bit touchy about being filmed.  When opposition groups stage protests, the police respond with violence.  In one jaw-dropper of an incident, they literally grab an opposition spokesman in mid-sentence while he is giving an on-camera interview to a reporter.

Winter should instill shock and outrage in viewers, but let us not forget there were similar instances of election shenanigans and intimidation reported in Philadelphia later in 2012.  Indeed, the suspicious busloads of “voters” demonstrate why stricter voter ID laws would serve the interests of democracy.

Watching Winter, Go Away is a wildly frustrating experience, but the truly independent filmmakers deserve enormous credit for their journalistic integrity.  They documented actual crimes the Russian and international media has cravenly ignored.  Highly recommended for all Russophiles, Russophobes, journalism students, and media critics, Winter, Go Away screens this Saturday (1/12) during the 2013 First Look at the Museum of the Moving Image.

The Neo-Communist Youth: Putin’s Kiss

Perhaps nothing signified the all-encompassing totalitarianism of National Socialism better than the Hitler Youth. Likewise, the Komsomol, or Communist Union of Youth, was emblematic of Soviet oppression. According to independent observers, the names are different, but the Komsomol has risen again in the guise of Nashi, a Kremlin backed youth group fiercely loyal to the current Russian Prime Minister. Though once a prominent spokesperson for the group, one young woman began to understand the realities of the regime she served. Lise Birk Pedersen documents her fascinating story in Putin’s Kiss (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Masha Drokova was an ambitious student who believed the government’s propaganda. She joined Nashi, rocketing up the ranks after she famously kissed the titular Russian strongman on state television. She became a national media figure and dogged foe of Putin’s democratic critics. However, her interest in journalism brought her into contact with independent reporters, like Oleg Khasin.

While remaining committed to Nashi, she found she enjoyed the open and robust debates with her new friends. Unfortunately, this did not bode well for her standing within the Putin Youth. When Khasin is brutally beaten thugs considered by everyone except the most willfully blind Nashi loyalists to be acting at the behest of the Kremlin or its allies, Drokova reaches a crossroads.

Only in her early twenties, Drokova is still at an age when peer pressure has very real consequences. To her credit, she stood by her injured friend, joining those demanding a proper inquiry, at no little risk to her well being. Yet, she does not repudiate her time serving Putin’s interests. As real journalists say, this story is still developing. Shrewdly, Pedersen never tries to impose a preset narrative, scrupulously recording the messy ambiguities of Drokova’s circumstances instead. Indeed, that is what makes the film so fascinating. Rather than a neat and tidy epiphany, we watch her reservations and doubts begin to stir.

Frankly, Drokova is not yet a fully mature adult, which can lead to viewer frustration with her as their POV protagonist. However, it is important to remember this is exactly why Nashi recruited Drokova and those like her. Indeed, Pedersen conveys a frighteningly vivid sense of Nashi’s reach and influence. After watching Kiss, it is impossible to accept claims the group is a nonpartisan service movement.

Kiss is an important film that shines an international spotlight on Putin’s youthful enforcers. Pedersen rakes a fair amount of muck, while capturing a very personal story with wider political implications. Mostly scary and only occasionally encouraging, it is highly recommended for viewers concerned and interested in the state of the world. It opens this Friday (2/17) in New York at the Cinema Village.