Khodorkovsky

"In October 2003, Russia’s richest man was arrested as he stepped off his private jet. Two years later, the 40-year-old oil company owner, ranked 16th on the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people, was in a Siberian prison nearly 5,000km from Moscow, having been found guilty of tax evasion and fraud. Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s real crime, it is widely believed, was to pose a political challenge to his former ally, Vladimir Putin. As one former Khodorkovsky colleague remarks in this absorbing film, 'to scare off a pack of wolves, you don’t have to kill them all; you just try to kill one – the most beautiful, the smartest, the fastest.' Director Cyril Tuschi’s doggedness and curiosity lead him around Russia, to Washington, London and Tel Aviv and finally back to Siberia, where at last he is able to question Khodorkovsky directly. The prisoner is strangely serene – perhaps because he realises the hopelessness of his defence against fresh charges of embezzlement and the protracted incarceration they will bring." (Source: NZ International Film Festival 2011)

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