Oscar and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney discusses his new film Citizen K and what it was like to profile Russia’s billionaire oil oligarch turned political activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He talks about the parallel rise of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Putin amid the chaos of post-Soviet Russia and the public showdown between the two men that put Khodorkovsky on Putin’s enemies list and eventually landed him in prison. Alex reveals why Khodorkovsky refused to flee Russia before his arrest and the personal transformation that he underwent during his decade in a remote Russian prison. He shares how Khodorkovsky got out of prison and escaped Russia with $500 million in the bank, how the ex-patriot is now waging a political war against Vladimir Putin from London, and whether he worries that Putin might could target him for assassination. Plus Alex reveals what Mikhail Khodorkovsky knows about Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election, why Vladimir Putin employs a cast of actors to make himself look good, and what Mikhail Khodorkovsky believes is Putin’s worst nightmare.
See Alex Gibney’s new documentary film Citizen K now out in theaters and follow Alex on twitter at @AlexGibneyfilm. Today episode was sponsored by Uncommitted: Iowa 2020, an original podcast from VICE News that’s available every Tuesday for free on Spotify and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood now out on digital.
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