Khodorkovsky

About The Film

A damning indictment of the Russian political and judicial system, this investigative exposé unravels the case of the Jewish tycoon who dared to oppose the Kremlin and now languishes in a Siberian prison. Once one of the world’s richest men, Mikhail Khodorkovsky rose from ardent Communist to post-Soviet billionaire head of Russia’s largest oil company. But his reform-minded business practices made him a powerful enemy of the Putin regime, eventually triggering his arrest and conviction on dubious fraud charges. Archival materials, stylized animation, and interviews with family, friends and former partners in Israel who fled prosecution illuminate key moments of his life, while the filmmaker scores a coup with exclusive courtroom access to Khodorkovsky himself. Five years in the making, Cyril Tuschi’s well-researched film raises troubling questions of rampant corruption, human rights abuses and xenophobia in contemporary Russia.