Russian spies tried to interfere with Putin film, director claims
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Russian spies attempted to interfere in the making of a film about Vladimir Putin, its director has claimed.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been used to portray the Russian president on screen, and the leader’s digital likeness is placed in compromising situations throughout the new film, simply titled Putin.
In one shot, the president appears morose in a large nappy after apparently soiling himself.
Russian intelligence officers attempted to learn about the potentially humiliating anti-Putin contents of the film once they got wind of it, Patryk Vega, the director, has said.
The Polish filmmaker told The Telegraph that he and his crew were bombarded with messages prior to release, from people posing as US political advisors or Ukrainian film executives.
They were wanting etails about the film and Vega said that he was offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to hand over a copy of the script.
Vega said: “I had a really funny experience with Russian intelligence, just before the first release of the trailer.
“Russian intelligence took from LinkedIn whole numbers of mobile phones for my crew.
“They started messaging these people, for example saying things like, ‘I am an assistant to a congressman from South Dakota, I hear you made this film’.
“‘My boss would like to pay $100,000 for a screening of this movie, and also for a script’.”
The film follows the Russian leader through six decades of his life, from the age of 10 to his eventual death.
AI has been used to plant a deepfake facial image of Putin on the body of an actor, giving the impression that Putin himself is starring in the film, which does not show him in a flattering light.
In an early scene, he is shown collapsed on a hospital floor wearing nappies, having apparently soiled his bed.
He is also shown half naked and engaging in an affair in his office.
Vega, known for his Polish gangster films, said he began receiving phishing messages about the film in the build-up to the Russian election in March, and he believes that intelligence officers were attempting to see what anti-Putin messaging was contained in the production.
Attempting to play with the messangers, he began replying for his own amusement to negotiate a price for handing over the script.
He said: “I started a conversation with them posing as a costume designer, and I tried to negotiate a price.
“They would only message between 9am and 5pm Moscow time. It’s obviously some guy with his boss on the side checking every answer before sending it to me.
“I started negotiating a price, it was $200,000, I told them they need to send me the first transfer, $10,000 just for proof. They agreed.”
Vega said that when the alleged officers asked where to send the transfer, he told them to send it to Agencja Wywiadu, the Polish intelligence, and he stopped receiving messages.
The director said that he is not afraid of infuriating Putin, to whom he had mockingly sent an invitation to star in the film, and that the best way to deal with such leaders is through irreverence.
The movie is due to be released in the UK in September.
