A team of investigative journalists from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed that a Hollywood producer planned to make propaganda films that would glorify several authoritarian leaders for a payment of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Igor Lopatonok, a native of Ukraine who is now a US citizen, in collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, initially produced two documentaries on Ukraine which were described as \u201cpro-Kremlin propaganda\u201d and a highly flattering eight-part mini-series on Kazakhstan\u2019s President Nursultan Nazarbayev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, Lopatonok planned to make several propaganda documentaries casting a positive light on the autocratic leaders of Azerbaijan and Turkey, among others. However, it is not clear if Stone would have been involved in any of these proposed projects. None of these documentaries were made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OCCRP stated that Aliyev, Putin and Lukashenko \u201chave all been accused of horrific crimes against the citizens of the countries they rule\u2026. But where the world sees brutal dictators, Igor Lopatonok sees opportunity [to make money].\u201d Since these authoritarian leaders were to pay for their propaganda documentaries, no mention would have been made of their brutal rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne of Lopatonok\u2019s glossy pitches, \u2018Untitled Oliver Stone Documentary\u2019 or \u2018About Ilham Aliyev and Azerbaijan\u2019, promises that Stone would \u2018sit face to face\u2019 with the Azerbaijani strongman [Aliyev] and cover not only \u2018emerging of leader to the head of state rank, but all questions of colorful and fascinating history of Azerbaijan,\u2019\u201d OCCRP reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLopatonok seemed to have hit upon a promising formula. He had assembled a small team of screenwriters and producers who churned out film ideas to pitch to dictators, making an enticing offer: copious screen time with a world-famous director [Oliver Stone]. The key to \u2018monetizing\u2019 the process was simple, said an insider who worked on the team, and agreed to speak with reporters on condition of anonymity. Lopatonok had figured out how to offer powerful people something they couldn\u2019t resist: Legitimacy on the world stage,\u201d OCCRP wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn his pitch to Aliyev for the \u2018Oliver Stone documentary,\u2019 Lopatonok underscores that the planned film would \u2018have a unique positive impact on publicity of the president and Azerbaijan.\u2019 Although it\u2019s unclear if Aliyev ever engaged with the pitch, an expert on Eurasia said it would be in line with the strongman\u2019s previous efforts to present his regime as a dynamic, modernizing influence in the region. \u2018I do see it as in line with all of these potential vectors of image washing \u2014 culture, sports, those are the big ones, and global events, global conferences,\u2019 said Alexander Cooley, a political science professor at New York\u2019s Barnard College and an expert on Eurasian transnational networks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is obvious that a documentary made by Hollywood filmmakers touting the greatness of Aliyev would have much more credibility than the cheap propaganda produced in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen authoritarian leaders get a Hollywood glow-up, it often comes at the expense of the people they rule over, said Casey Michel, head of the Human Rights Foundation\u2019s Combating Kleptocracy Program. The foundation has spent years campaigning for Hollywood stars to stop working with dictatorial regimes. \u2018I can\u2019t imagine how dispiriting it must be for citizens in places like Kazakhstan \u2026 to watch this American director come and turn into a propaganda mouthpiece for their dictators,\u2019 Michel said. These people know how horrific these regimes truly are \u2014 and then they watch this American parachute in, and gobble up all of the dictators\u2019 talking points, without even bothering to push back,\u201d OCCRP stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The funding to produce these documentaries is to be provided by the dictators \u201cor people close to them.\u201d In 2019, when Stone and Lopatonok produced the documentary \u201cQazaq: History of the Golden Man,\u201d about Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan, a charitable foundation controlled by him paid the duo at least $5 million,\u201d OCCRP reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Documents obtained by OCCRP reporters revealed that Lopatonok\u2019s \u201cteam prepared synopses of potential films about at least six other authoritarian governments, including China, the United Arab Emirates, and the Russian republic of Tatarstan, alongside the pitches to Aliyev and Lukashenko, promising that Stone would interview their leaders and help tell their \u2018true story.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lopatonok\u2019s team proposed that during his interview with Aliyev, Stone discuss \u201cthe country\u2019s \u2018success\u2019 under the \u2018dynastic rule\u2019 of the Aliyev family, and its ongoing conflict with \u2018an Armenia that is losing its stability and teetering on the edge of an abyss.\u2019 A summary of the proposed film makes clear the tenor of Lopatonok\u2019s approach: It describes Aliyev as a \u2018true successor\u2019 to his father, the previous president, who had taught him to be a \u2018wise leader.\u2019\u201d The pitch asked: \u201cCan you really call the existing state system in Azerbaijan a \u2018Cult of Personality\u2019? Or is it just a tribute of people\u2019s respect to a leader who was able to turn the country from poverty into one of the developed, prosperous countries?\u201d The film about Aliyev would cost $15 million, according to OCCRP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lopatonok told the Azeri media during his visit to Baku in 2021: \u201cThis country [Azerbaijan] has a very rich and colorful culture. When I was here in 2012-2013, I learned to distinguish the Karabakh carpets from all others, identifying [them] by their ornament. I would make a good film about Azerbaijan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was another synopsis for a film on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, \u201coffering him a chance to tout his defense of Turkish interests.\u201d Here is what the synopsis said: \u201cErdogan is a Turk and hardly needs to be basing his actions on the interests of other countries. But what interests does he have? Can he restore the Great Silk Road? And does he really have expansionist plans? What is Erdogan trying to achieve? He should answer these questions himself. And only himself. We should not try to divine [Erdogan\u2019s plans] from coffee grounds, even if it is magnificent Turkish coffee that they know how to make only in Istanbul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn a 2018 interview, Ibrahim Kalin, then the spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, confirmed that they had received a pitch for a documentary about Erdogan around the same time Stone was in Turkey. \u2018We are looking at it, we are evaluating it,\u2019 he said,\u201d OCCRP reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A team of investigative journalists from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed that a Hollywood producer planned to make propaganda films that would glorify several authoritarian leaders for a payment of millions of dollars. Igor Lopatonok, a native of Ukraine who is now a US citizen, in collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":45598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[10796,6795,6744],"class_list":["post-823727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian","tag-erdogan","tag-hollywood","tag-ilham-aliyev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}