Tag: secret police

The Wizard of the Kremlin
(Le Mage du Kremlin)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 15 April 2026
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(Le Mage du Kremlin)
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Director – Olivier Assayas – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 137m

*****

Starting in 1990s Russia, an avant-garde theatre director morphs into first a TV producer then the mastermind behind the rise and rule of Vladimir Putin – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 17th

2019. Roland (Jeffrey Wright) writing a book on a prominent Russian novelist and on a research trip to Moscow when he receives a message from someone who has materials that will interest him. So he accepts the invitation and is driven to a private house on the woodlands outskirts of that city where he is shown first editions and documentation pertaining to the writer.

All this, however, is a pretext to the main event. His host, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), starts to tell Roland his life story from his student days onwards. Which sets the scene for what is to follow: a portrait of a close-up portrait of a shadowy figure who was to become Vladimir Putin’s arch-manipulator and right-hand man.

Dismissive of Gorbachov, he takes us back to the early 1990s when the Soviet Union was collapsing and Boris Yeltsin was in the presidential ascendant. A time of gunfire and violence, when men of increasing wealth and power could be killed at any time, a fact illustrated by an SUV exploding mid-convoy along a Muscovite spaghetti junction.… Read the rest

Tags 1990s, a centred, adaptation, Alicia Vikander, anarchy, and right-hand man, artist, avant-garde theatre, biopic, Boris Yeltsin, calm, city, control, convoy, creative arts, cultural storm, dark arts, declining health, despot, devoted father to his young daughter, dog performer, drama. TV news footage, election, election broadcast, entrepreneur, explodsion, France, Giuliano da Empoli, Gorbachov, gunfire, hardliner, individuals, influence, institutions, Jeffrey Wright, Jude Law, luxury yacht, maelstrom, manipulation, novel, official, Olivier Assayas, outskirts, party, Paul Dano, planning, political thriller, politics, power, power base, power struggles, private house, puppet ruler, Rasputin, ride the storm and only disappears from view when he himself decides the time is right. He is the eponymous, rise and fall, Russian Oligarch, secret police, singer, social collapse, social gathering, Soviet Union, spaghetti junction, SUV, taken down, the masses, Tom Sturridge, tough leadership, Tsar, TV producer, violence, vision, visionary, Vladimir Putin’s arch-manipulator, wealth, Will Keen, Wizard of the Kremlin, woodland, writing a book, zeitgeist

Features Live Action Movies

Two Prosecutors
(Zwei Staatsanwälte)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 26 March 2026
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(Zwei Staatsanwälte)
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Director – Sergei Loznitsa – 2025 – France, Germany, Romania, Latvia, Netherlands, Lithuania – Cert. 12A – 118m

****1/2

Stalinist Russia, 1937. A young, idealistic prosecutor takes up the case of an unjustly imprisoned, political prisoner – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 27th

A prison yard. Impassive guards. Inmates on scaffolding work at plastering the exterior wall. A man from a new prisoner detail is given a sack of letters and locked in a cell with a stove. He must burn the letters.

Given two matches, he reads some of the letters before incineration. One is written in blood from an inmate named Stepniak requesting a visit from a prosecutor.

The young, fresh faced prosecutor Kornev (Alexander Kuznetsov) arrives at the prison to see the governor. He is seen instead to the duty assistant (Andria Keiss).

The prosecutor is received, but the interviewing duty assistant lives in a different world. The prison staff live in a world where the apple cart is never to be upset and an easy life is paramount. They laugh uproariously at the current joke doing the rounds about a political celebrity being imprisoned both before and after the Revolution.

They do their jobs efficiently, but woe beside interfering busybodies.… Read the rest

Tags 1937, a leg and an arm, accost, Aleksandr Fillippenko, Alexander Kuznetsov, an easy life, Anatoliy Belyy, Andria Keiss, apple cart, beating, belief, briefcase, bureaucrat, Burn!, busybody, cautionary tale, cell, cell bunk, crush hope, duty assistant, engineer, factory inspector, France, gate, Germany, governor, guitar, human rights, humour, idealism, ideals, impassive guards. Inmate, impenetrable, impregnable, imprisoned, incarcerate, incineration, injury, injustice, interview, keys, Latvia, letters, Lithuania, locked in, match, metal grille doors. Impassive, Moscow, Netherlands, NKVD, office, old college friend, peephole, plastering, political joke, political prisoner, prison staff, prison yard, prisoner, prosecutor, protocol, queues, repression, revolution, Romania, Russia, scaffolding, secret police, Sergei Loznitsa, songs, Soviet ideals, Soviet songs, staircase, Stalinist Russia, status quo, step out of line, stew, stove, system, top floor, train, train compartment, Two Prosecutors, visit, vodka, war pension, war veteran, wounds, written in blood

Features Live Action Movies

Cairo Conspiracy,
(original title:
Boy From Heaven,
Walad Min Al Janna,
صبي من الجنة)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 14 April 2023
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(original title:
Boy From Heaven,
Walad Min Al Janna,
صبي من الجنة)
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Director – Tarik Saleh – 2022 – Sweden, France, Finland – Cert. 12a – 126m

***

A naive, young, Egyptian student at a top Islamic university is recruited as a spy for the secret police – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 14th

Adam (Tawfeek Barhom), a bookworm born and raised in rural Egypt where he works as a fisherman like his father before him, visits the local mosque where his trusted Imam gives him a letter informing him he’s been accepted into Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar University, the top seat of Sunni Muslim learning and thought. He’s worried his widowed father won’t let him go, but his father fatally accepts it as the Will of Allah. In his university dorm, Adam finds his bed taken by fellow student Raed (Ahmed Laissaoui) and winds up in the bunk below. (The university is for men only: no women. At least, we see none here.)

Unexpectedly, the Grand Imam, the head of the university, dies and a successor must be chosen. At the security forces building, the General (Mohammad Bakri) listens to the analysis by Colonel Ibrahim (Fares Fares) of the possible candidates, throwing all files on the floor except one – the one with whom the President’s views align, the candidate who must win.… Read the rest

Tags academic, Academy Award, Academy Awards, Academy Awards 2022-23, Academy Awards 2023, Ahmed Laissaoui, Al-Azhar University, authorities, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Foreign Language Film 2022-23, Best Foreign Language Film 2023, bookworm, Cairo, clerics, conspiracy, dorm, education, Egypt, Egyptian security forces, election fixing, Fares Fares, Finland, fisherman, France, Grand Imam, higher education, holy man, hypocrite, Imam, Islam, Islamic education, Islamic learning, Jawad Atawil, John le Carré, Koran, learning, leave the country, local mosque, Makram Khoury, Mehdi Debhi, Mohammad Bakri, mosque, Muslim, Oscar, Oscar nominations, Oscars, Oscars 2022-23, Oscars 2023, Ramzi Choukair, reciting contest, rural, rural and urban, secret marriage, secret police, security, security forces, Sheikh, Sherwan Haji, spiritual wisdom, Sunni Muslim, Sweden, Tarik Saleh, Tawfeek Barhom, threat of imprisonment, threat of prison, thriller, university, urban