Known for Acting
"Conquered Chechnya is the cornerstone of Putin's power. It all started there. If we admit that the leader of conquered Chechnya is a scoundrel, what will remain of Putin himself?" This is how one Russian official responded when asked about the untouchability of Ramzan Kadyrov, who has created a true sultanate within Russia, operating beyond the reach of Russian law. This documentary is a historical investigation into the blood-soaked path Kadyrov has taken to build his sultanate. It uncovers new evidence of murders surrounding Kadyrov, large-scale corruption of unimaginable proportions, and equally shocking details of his personal life, including a harem with underage concubines and brutal punishments.
This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
Documentary montage film by Alexander Vartanov, a subjective look at the beginning of the 21st century in Russia
The lifestyle, self-styling and political opinions of Chechen dictator Ramsan Kadyrov are examined in this documentary.
They’ve become the human face of inhuman barbarity. Leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Bokassa, Muammar Kadhafi, Khomeini, Mussolini and Franco governed their countries completely cut off from reality. These paranoid leaders were driven to abuse their power by the pathology of power itself. Dictators are driven by a relentless, thought-out determination to impose themselves as infallible, all-knowing and all-powerful beings. But they are also men ruled by their caprices, uncontrollable impulses, and reckless fits of frenzy, which paradoxically render them as human as anyone else. The abuses they committed were clearly atrocious, yet some of them were as outlandish as the characters portrayed in the film The Dictator. They sunk to depths worthy of Kafka: so incredibly absurd, they are outrageously funny.
