Poisoned by Polonium

SYNOPSIS

"If anything should happen to me, I beg you to show this tape to the whole world." On November 23rd, 2006, these words, spoken on camera by exiled former KGB and FSB (post communist Russia's dreaded new secret police) agent Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko, became a gruesome self-fulfilling prophecy. After an agonizingly painful ordeal, Litvinenko succumbed to what was allegedly radiation poisoning from a lethal dose of toxic Polonium-210, surreptitiously slipped into his tea during a London meeting with two FSB ex-colleagues three weeks earlier. In Poisoned by Polonium:

The Litvinenko File, filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov exposes the truth behind a crime that shocked the world and provoked a war of words between Russia and England that continues to this day. A "first-rate investigative documentary" (NY Newsday) combining "an impressive array of film clips and extended interviews with Mr. Litvinenko" (New York Times), Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File is both a nuanced documentary requiem for a friend and a searing personal indictment of Vladimir Putin's de facto dictatorship and Russia's hidden history of tyrannical secret police repression going all the way back to the Tsars. Also featured on this DVD, Andrei Nekrasov's 2004 documentary Disbelief, an investigative film about the 1999 bombing of an apartment building in Moscow that sheds light on terrorism and post-Soviet government operations.

REVIEWS

"A MUCKRAKING DOCUMENTARY OF VAST SHUDDERY INTRIGUE." - Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"EXTRAORDINARY... (a) testament to a man whose incendiary allegations... might have had fatal consequences. Impressive array of film clips and extended interviews." - Jeanette Catsoulis, THE NEW YORK TIMES

DVD Features

• Two Additional Films by Andrei Nekras ov:Disbelief, a documentary based on Litvinenko's book
  • "Blowing Up Russia." Premiered at Sundance 2004. (2004, 53 min., w/ English subtitles
  • The Hero of Our Time, a short documentary about Poisoned by Polonium protagonist M. Trepashkin. (2003, 15 min., w/ English subtitles.
• Interview with Litvinenko¹s widow, Marina, and the co-author of her book on him, Alex Goldfarb. (2007, 19 min., in English)
• Filmmaker Biographies