About

Putin’s Witnesses is a fascinating portrait of Vladimir Putin produced with unprecedented access to its subject at the time of his ascension to the office of the Russian presidency.

Vitaly Mansky was commissioned by Russian state television to film the then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he prepared for the 2000 Presidential election. Mansky was granted private access to the campaign team and Putin himself. The documentary presents this footage through the lens of modern history, where corruption and the consolidation of power have rendered so many of the campaign platitudes cruelly ironic. The director, now an outspoken critic of Putin and living in self-imposed exile, has crafted an illuminating study of a guarded man whose true nature can only ever be glimpsed briefly through his carapace.

Ages 15+