Our New President

"Our New President" (2018 release; 77 min.) is a documentary on how the Russian media (primarily-but not only-TV) covered the 2016 US presidential elections and its aftermath. As the documentary opens, we see how in 1997 then-First Lady Hillary Clinton visits the "Mummy Princess", supposedly leading to "disturbing the spirits" and causing Clinton's health scares in the 2016 campaign. And the fantasies are just starting! In the movie's eight chapters, we get to understand different aspects of the whole thing, from the basics of Ostankino Tower (Chapter 1), from which Russian news is broadcast, to "Fake Realities" (Chapter 6) and "21st Century Propaganda" (Chapter 7), which get to the very core of it.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from hot-button director Maxim Pozdorovkin, who previously made a well-received documentary about Pussy Riot. Here he captures the Russian propaganda machine in full swing. If you are wondering how bad it is, think of it as the equivalent of the National Enquirer presenting the TV evening news every night, essentially totally misconstruing 'facts' or simply making them up. Keep in mind of course that the Russian government controls every single moment of every single TV broadcast in the entire country. Imagine if Trump were to directly control every single TV news outlet in this country. Seems unimaginable (although I'm sure Trump would like that idea), but in Russia that is the reality. You'll hear the head of Russia Today (the news organization) say things like "Objectivity is a 20th century word", and "The time of detached unbiased journalism is over". And watching average Russians rejoice at Trump's victory is just ... bizarre. But that is the end result of a massive propaganda machine that works 24/7 to manipulate the Russian people (and of course also the American people, as we all know by now). In the end, "Our New President" is a little bit like reading that recent book "Fire and Fury: Inside the White House": you suspect all of this going on, but when you see it all laid out in a nicely organized manner, you cannot help but shake your head in disgust and disbelief.

I had read about "Our New President" a few months ago, and was very much hoping for an opportunity to see it. Imagine my surprise and good fortune when it had several screenings at the recent Fort Myers Film Festival while I was there. The Saturday matinee screening where I saw this at was attended so-so (about 15 people), which I thought was disappointing. Maybe the later showings would attract more people. In any event, I'm quite happy to have seen this. If you have any interest in understanding better what is going on in Russia today, I'd encourage you to check out "Our New President", be it in theaters (not very likely), on VOD (most likely), or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

My eyes have been opened, I have seen a slice of life that holds enormous political sway over the world. Saw this film twice and I know that the average American has no idea that the Russian Media operates in such a manner. From the actual manufacturing of news to the constant manipulations in service of the Kremlin, this is a revelatory film. And it is smart, snappy, and compelling. A must see for anyone concerned about the future of the world.

Russia Today which I've watched on occasion is one of many news organizations influenced by Putin to promote Russian nationalism (a more intense version of Fox). Objective reality is out; promoting the values of a love of Russia (analogous to a love of U.S. by our own) is the new media standard. As other docs have discussed, members of Trump's family & business interests have discussed future investments (resorts, casinos, hotels) in Russia. Russia in turn sees Trump as more favorable than Clinton, and ended up broadcasting that Clinton was physically & mentally fragile as well as being a hostile threat to Russian security. They even, which I find a bit hard to believe, suggested that many deaths both of her advisors & her opponents were orchestrated by her. Hmmmm? Criticism: Would have liked a bit more independent verification from other sources especially w/so many brief extracted/cut scenes.

First of all lets get something straight, content analysis done by several major western European journalism schools of the programming of scummy "Russia Today" showed RT reported on Hillary favorably more often than they did on Trump. RT had nasty pieces on Hillary, literally fawning over her in many more hours of programming, and it more often had nasty pieces on Trump in the year lead up.

The unintended irony is that the maker of this film is using the same destabilized perception technique as used by RT! I tis not an analysis of the problem, but a cherry picking of it.

I have to be frank in saying that documentary film making has never overly appealed to me.mostly because they all seem to follow a pretty straight forward formula. Where this film complete shines is the fact that it's not really a documentary at all and in some respects doesn't feel like a film . It's more of a social experiment and warning of the down falls of fake news and how far the Russian government can go in ensuring the the Russian public only knows what they want them to know. In that regard I think that this is an incredibly important film that I sincerely wish most of the american public can view as a warning of the dangers of falsified news.