Russia's Open Book: Writing in the Age of Putin

Narrated unforgettably by Stephen Fry, this new documentary explores the rebirth of the Russian novel. It introduces the audience to six of the biggest stars of contemporary Russian literature and their work and shows us a rarely-seen side of today's Russia. New works in original English translations are read by Fry against a backdrop of award-winning original animations of these fictional worlds. And we meet the contemporary writers: the former Special Forces officer who writes touchingly of provincial life, but idolises Mickey Rourke, 50 Cent – and Stalin. He greets the camera crew at his country house, naked in his banya. The innocent-looking young mother who writes chilling horror stories takes us to a secret spot in Moscow’s Gorky Park where the old Soviet-era rides of her childhood are being dismantled. In the former Soviet republic of Armenia we meet a woman who spent her entire adult life writing one masterpiece, a 1,000-page fantasy. In Moscow we march with the poet who leads many of the anti-Putin demonstrations, and we sit in the flat of the former scientist who only turned to writing after she fell foul of the KGB in the 1970s. And, finally, we meet Russia’s most scandalous and violent literary novelist, feted at home and abroad, who explains why he compared the ruling Putin clique to the medieval torturers who served Ivan the Terrible. A production by Wilton Films and Intelligent Television.