Moscow, January 1996. Boris Yeltsin gets ready to run for a second mandate of the presidency of the young Russian Federation. Polls are in the single digits. A painful economic transition, war in Chechnya, and the rise of criminal groups have left the majority of Russians dissatisfied with Yeltsin… and willing to vote for the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. Yet six months later, Yeltsin won the election with nearly 54% of the vote. How did that happen?
The film tells about the most difficult period in the modern history of Russia - from the late 1980s and the "era of change" to the crisis end of the noughties - through the prism of people who made the most important economic decisions. But this is not a dry enumeration of facts, but an accurate and even unexpected portrait of economists who managed to keep an entire country from financial collapse, and in the center of this group portrait is Alexey Kudrin.
Federación de Rusia, 31 de diciembre de 1999. Tras la inesperada dimisión del presidente Boris Yeltsin, el primer ministro Vladimir Putin se convierte en presidente interino del país. Desde ese día y durante un año, la cámara de Vitaly Mansky documentó el ascenso al poder de Putin. La historia de un testigo privilegiado. La dura explicación de por qué la política es el arte de la posibilidad de lograr lo mejor con el apoyo de muchos, pero también de dar lo peor a cambio.
The shrill and tragic story about an event that involved Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. In an infantry regiment of the military based in the Tula region an offence occurs. In this regiment, the capital’s lieutenant Grigory Kolokoltsev — inspired by progressive ideas — does his service. A military tribunal and execution await the soldier charged with the offence. Kolokoltsev asks Count Tolstoy for help — and he decides to protect the innocent man. The pointed history about the complexity of choice and fidelity to one’s ideals is based on real events.
After the father’s death, the daughter of one of the forefathers of modern Russian democracy, Ksenia Sobchak, tries to understand the 18 years of his political fate. Together with the director Vera Krichevskaya she gives the word to Anatoli Sobchak’s colleagues and opponents, gets acquainted with the criminal case which annulled his career, and tries to find an answer to the question what Anatoly Sobchak’s fate would be in today’s Russia.
Khodorkovsky, the richest Russian, challenges President Putin. A fight of the titans begins. Putin warns him. But Khodorkovsky comes back to Russia knowing that he will be imprisoned, once he returns. When I heard about it, I asked myself: why didn't he stay in exile with a couple of billions? Why did he do that? A personal journey to Khodorkovsky.
