Award-winning documentary by Alex Gibney premieres at Fisher Theatre
Sedona AZ (January 29, 2020) – The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of the critically-acclaimed and award-winning new documentary “Citizen K” Feb. 7-13 at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre.
Oscar-winning writer/director Alex Gibney’s revelatory “Citizen K” is an intimate yet sweeping look at post-Soviet Russia from the perspective of the enigmatic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oligarch turned political dissident.
Benefitting from the chaos that ensued after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., Khodorkovsky was able to amass a fortune in financing and oil production and became the richest man in Russia. But when he accused the new Putin regime of corruption, Khodorkovsky was arrested, his assets were seized and following a series of show trials, he was sentenced to more than ten-years in prison.
Today, as an exile living in London, he continues to speak out against Putin’s two-decade stranglehold on power. Expertly researched and photographed, Gibney uses Khodorkovsky’s story as a way to explore the complex interplay between oligarchy and government and its destructive effect on democracy, in Russia and beyond.
Gibney conducted extensive interviews with Khodorkovsky and he remains as quick, canny and mercurial as he appears in the found footage shot during his heyday. The story took Gibney not only to London, but to Germany and inside various locations in Russia as well, where he spoke to Khodorkovsky’s former colleagues, foreign journalists who reported on the country’s fledgling attempts at democracy and backslide into dictatorship, and average citizens. It enabled him to construct a chilling, cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy in the face of endemic corruption and demagoguery in Russia and, by inference, how the story echoes across the globe.
“Riveting. A scalding portrait of Putin’s Russia.” – The Hollywood Reporter
“A stunning must-see.” – The Times
“Engrossing.” – Screen Daily
“Absorbing. What a strange story, and it’s not over yet.” – The Guardian
“Citizen K” will be shown at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre Feb. 7-13. Showtimes will be 4 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Wednesday, Feb. 7, 8 and 12; and 7 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday, Feb. 11 and 13.
Tickets are $12, or $9 for Film Festival members. For tickets and more information, please call 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona. For more information, visit: www.SedonaFilmFestival.org.
