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The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a volatile but highly advantageous environment for young Russian businessmen eager to build the fledgling market economy by any means necessary. Striking extraordinary deals with the government to acquire newly privatized industries, a small group of men became phenomenally rich almost overnight. The most successful of these oligarchs was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who quickly became the wealthiest man in Russia. Khodorkovsky was unique, because he invested not only in business, but in true social reform and a new ideal of an open society, an attitude that ran afoul of the absolute rule of Vladimir Putin. Within months of announcing a deal which would have opened the formerly state-controlled Russian oil industry to investment by Western corporations, Khodorkovsky and his business partners were arrested and jailed for fraud and tax evasion.
Tracing Khodorkovsky's dramatic, rise to power and subsequent fall at the hands of Putin's KGB-infested government, this probing, deeply troubling documentary reveals a nation still unsure of its commitment to economic and social liberties.
Cathryn Collins, a widely traveled entrepreneur, has been following the life of Mikhail Khodorkovsky for a decade. Her pursuit of this provocative story led to a single-minded odyssey across three continents in the creation of her first film VLAST (POWER). With an unerring eye for detail and the tenacity of a war correspondent, Collins cobbled together a story of power in Russia that few hazarded confronting.
Traveling the world and studying languages since childhood, Collins is committed to working in and understanding other cultures. Her passions are expressed in her devotion to philanthropic cultural and social projects in Nepal, Cambodia, Italy and New York as well as in her design business, which is based on resources developed by her in South Asia, Europe and the United States.
A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Business School, Collins is well known for her style, and her obsession with revealing the unknown. She is the founder and President of the luxury goods design business I Pezzi Dipinti, Inc., as well as a Contributing Editor at DEPARTURES Magazine.
"The film is more than a must-see; it's a classic." - Hamptons.com
