The Latvian misadventures of the “Mage of the Kremlin”, or the story of a filming fraught with pitfalls | EUROtoday

Arras, one night in November 2025. Despite the chilly prevailing in Pas-de-Calais, a queue has shaped within the coronary heart of town. These 900 spectators are privileged; they would be the first, in France, to see the newest movie by Olivier Assayas, broadcast as a part of the Arras Film Festival, The Mage of the Kremlinthat includes Vladimir Putin and considered one of his advisors. “A captivating geopolitical thriller where fiction takes over reality”, guarantee the organizers.

British actor Jude Law performs the Russian president on this blockbuster with a funds of 23 million euros. “A film in English, shot in Latvia, with American and Latvian actors and a French crew, intended primarily for the French”summarizes Olivier Assayas whereas presenting it to the general public. The director, who didn’t reply to interview requests from the Worldslides alongside the trail strewn with pitfalls of his characteristic movie, from its supply of inspiration – a typically contested guide – to the taking pictures, a humorous Franco-Russian story, with Latvia because the setting.

A warning seems on the display screen: “The movie stays a creative work. The characters, in addition to their phrases and opinions, are fictitious. » Most of the protagonists, nevertheless, consult with very actual personalities, together with the oligarch Boris Berezovski (1946-2013), the chess participant Garry Kasparov or Vladimir Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007). And right here quickly the spectators are launched into Moscow events, between alcohol and medicines, but in addition within the corridors of the Kremlin. At the guts of the story, a communications strategist chargeable for drawing us nearer to Putin. The mage is him: Paul Dano on display screen, Vladislav Surkov in actual life.

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