In 2003 Mikhail Khodorkovsky — one of the richest men in Russia — began a ten-year sentence in a Siberian prison for fraud and tax evasion. Many believed his sin was challenging Vladimir Putin, the newly-elected president who began a crusade against anyone with power who challenged him. Imprisoned after a series of theatrical trials orchestrated by Putin, “Citizen K” became a world-famous dissident. Currently exiled in London with trumped up Russian murder charges hanging over his head, Khodorkovsky continues to battle Putin and his decades-long hold on power.
Photographed on location in the UK, Russia and Germany, Director Alex Gibney's new documentary, Citizen K, tracks Khodorkovsky's path from communist to oligarch to political prisoner to exiled dissident and examines the price of power in Russia.
Following the DGA Eastern Region Special Projects Committee’s Documentary Series screening in New York on November 1, Gibney discussed the making of the film in a conversation moderated by Director Matthew Heineman (City of Ghosts).
In addition to Citizen K, Gibney's filmography includes the documentary features No Stone Unturned, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, Freakonomics, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, the DGA Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, and the DGA Award-nominated films Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer and Taxi to the Dark Side. Gibney has been a DGA member since 1998.
You can listen to Gibney's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.