The Wizard of the Kremlin

Olivier Assayas’s adaptation of the award-winning book by Giuliano da Empoli traces the rise and fall of Vadim Baranov, a former theatre and television director who becomes Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man and helps the modern tsar reshape Russia into its distinctive 21st-century autocracy.

Russia, early 1990s. In the chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the young TV producer Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano) is drawn into the inner circle of power. As a shrewd spin doctor, he carefully constructs the image of the former KGB agent Vladimir Putin (Jude Law).

One by one, he eliminates influential figures. The deeper Vadim becomes entangled in his web of political manipulation, the further-reaching the consequences of his influence on Russian politics prove to be.