Double Bill: Putin's Leap Year & Khodorkovsky

Putin's Progress
A Day of Documentaries and Discussion
On the Eve of the Russion Elections

Book Day Pass or Book Double Bill

With protesters gathering in Red Square, accusations of vote-rigging and Vladimir Putin poised to return to the Kremlin, all eyes are on Russia in the coming month.

On the eve of the presidential election, DocHouse presents a day of documentaries and discussion about Russia in the 21st Century, since Putin came to power.

Double Bill

12.00pm - 13.00pm (58 mins)
Putin's Leap Year (dir. Vitalij Mansky, Russia, 2001)

An intimate portrait of the ex-KGB officer at the very start of his presidency.

Vitali Mansky paints an intimate portrait of the ex-KGB officer at the very start of his presidency. Later films show Putin’s steely-eyed determinism, but here in 2001, as he assumes his presidency and gets to grips with the Kremlin, he cuts a surprisingly humble and sympathetic figure.

14.00pm - 15.55pm (111 mins)
Khodorkovsky (dir. Cyril Tuschi, Germanly, 2011)
Uncovering the meteoric rise and dramatic fall of Russia’s most famous oligarch.

Once the richest man in the world under 40, billionaire oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky reigned supreme amongst Russia’s elite. But his astonishing fall from Putin’s grace has left him languishing in a Siberian jail on charges of tax fraud and embezzlement. Digging into the covert world of the oligarchs, director Cyril Tushi traces Khodorkovsky’s meteoric rise through
post-communist society and questions the real reasons behind his dramatic fall.

On stage panel discussion

The festival's panelists include:

• German filmmaker Cyril Tuschi spent five years researching his documentary Khodorkovsky, gathering 180 hours of interviews in Moscow, Tel Aviv, London, New York, Siberia and Berlin.
• Series Director of the BBC's recent four-part 'Putin, Russia and the West', Emmy Award-winning director Paul Mitchell has worked extensively on films about post-Soviet Russia including 2002's 'Greetings From Grozny'.
• Edward Lucas is International Editor of The Economist, having formerly been its Moscow Bureau Chief (1998 - 2002) and writing on Central/Eastern Europe for more than 20 years. His forthcoming book 'Deception is published in March.
• Federico Varese is Professor of Criminology at Oxford University. He is an internationally respected expert on organised crime and his book ‘The Russian Mafia’ won the Ed Hewitt Prize in 2002.
• Dutch director Eline Flipse has been directing documentaries since 1982, founding production company Elifli Film in 2005.  'Our Newspaper' won Best Mid-Length Documentary at Hot Docs 2011.

Part of Putin's Progress Festival. Second Double Bill will commence at 18.00pm. Day passes are available for purchase.