Khodorkovsky story has more intrigue than fiction (Feature)

By Helen Maguire Feb 16, 2011, 2:05 GMT

Berlin - Khodorkovsky, a documentary about the eponymous jailed Russian oil billionaire, tells a story that is stronger than fiction, in the words of its German director Cyril Tuschi.

'All my ideas were weaker than the reality,' said Tuschi, who had initially been inspired to produce a dramatized version of the power struggle between Mikhail Khodorkovsky and former Russian president turned Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this week, less than two weeks after burglars stole the final draft from a Berlin office. An earlier version had also disappeared from Tuschi's possession during a stay in Bali, where he had been editing it.

Undeterred, the director worked frantically in the nights leading up to the Berlinale festival to reassemble the final draft in time for the premiere.

'It meant a lot of extra work - and it was a shock,' Tuschi said.

He has refused to speculate about the perpetrators, preferring to believe that the thieves were merely after the Apple computers on which he had stored the files.

Tuschi, who has Russian roots, spent five years researching and compiling interviews for the film. The result is a pastiche of some 30 interviews with family, business partners and consultants for the former Yukos oil company, and even a former cellmate in Siberia.

The journalist travelled to Moscow, Siberia, Israel and the United States to meet the protagonists, who built up a multi-faceted picture of Khodorkovsky, the oil-tycoon-turned-philanthropist who was jailed in 2003 for tax evasion and again in December on oil theft charges.

Crucially however, the film also contains a rare interview with Khodorkovsky himself, granted by the judge during last year's trial.

The scene shows him standing in a bulletproof box in the courtroom corner, smiling at the absurdity of charges that he had stolen 350 million barrels of Yukos oil.

Such a large amount would 'fill a train long enough to fit around the world three times,' he said. 'It's utter nonsense.'

Asked why he returned to Russia in 2003, knowing that he would probably be arrested, the 47-year-old said he felt at the time that he had to stand up for himself in court, adding, 'I had naive ideas about justice.'

The film's 30 interviews go back to Khodorkovsky's student days, when he was a member of the communist youth league. Fiercely ambitious, he founded Bank Menatep after the fall of communism, propelling him to the power and wealth that later allowed him to buy the Yukos oil company.

Tuschi tries to find reasons for the twist in Khodorkovsky's fortunes in 2003, after an image change saw the hard-nosed capitalist develop an interest in welfare projects and politics, backing parties that opposed Putin and speaking out against government corruption.

Newsreel footage is mixed with interviewees such as Khodorkovsky's business associates and a former Russian economics minister, as well as Igor Yurgens, a current-day adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister.

Tuschi also visits Khodorkovsky's mother and travels with his ex- wife, Elena Khodorkovskaya, to the United States, where he interviews their son Pavel.

Not all of the protagonists were able to travel to Berlin for the premiere, Tuschi said, as Russian authorities have issued international search warrants for some of them and they did not feel safe from extradition in Germany.

The material for the 111-minute film was whittled down from hundreds of interviews that the journalist now plans to release as short films on the internet, on topics such as Khodorkovsky's Jewish past, how he amassed his first million dollars and his role in Russian opposition politics.

The film is pervaded by Tuschi's obvious fascination with a man whose character struggles have been described in Shakespearean dimensions, but the director refrains from casting a final judgement of the person whose footsteps he followed for five years.

'To discuss whether somebody is holy or a devil, both would be inhuman. My hope was to give a feel for the person he is,' he said.

Read more about Germany Cinema