Director Oliver Stone traveled to Russia recently to finalize details on his new film The Snowden Files, about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. While there, he confessed to wanting to direct a documentary about current Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said that he would enjoy interviewing Putin, who “represents a different point of view that Americans don’t hear.” I guess you can’t argue with that.
Stone’s interest in making a documentary about Putin has not received a glowing response from the Kremlin, who simply acknowledged the director’s words without anything further. I would imagine that at least one of the fears coming out of Russia would be that they’d have no control over what Stone (or didn’t) do with the documentary, which could turn out to be much more accusatory than perhaps Stone’s words have led them to believe. Putin and Stone only met briefly during the director’s visit, when they both attended a memorial in Moscow for late Russian actor/director Vasily Schuksin.
More immediately, Stone’s Snowden film has finally gotten American and international distribution: the American side will be handled by Open Road Films, with French company The Wild Bunch distributing internationally. The pic focuses on Snowden, now residing in Russia, and his activities that got the NSA into a heap of trouble. This is just a guess, but I have a feeling that it is not going to be glowingly positive about American surveillance society.
If Oliver Stone ever gets the go-ahead to do a doc about Putin will remain an open question for now. He did manage to make a documentary about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and that late leader’s relationship with Fidel Castro though. In other words: Stone has good credentials in the Communist world.
