Putin's Witnesses

On December 31st 1999, Russia was acquainted with its new and current president, Vladimir Putin. Through personal archive material and unique witnesses very close to one of today’s most controversial political leaders, Vitaly Mansky reveals the true causes and consequences of the “Operation Successor”, the political plot that put Putin in power.

To overcome a serious and advanced illness, it is necessary to make a diagnosis and study the history of this illness. This was the filmmaker’s logic when he conceived a film about the events after the unexpected resignation of President Boris Yeltsin and the start of “Operation Successor”;. Protagonists such as Mikhail Gorbatxov, Boris Ieltsin and Vladimir Putin himself, reveal their rise to power and the actors that made it possible. Vitaly Mansky wants his documentary to be a testimony, not only for Russian society, a silent testimony of its own destiny, but also for other countries in the process of losing their freedoms.