NEW Screening: Rebellion – The Litvinenko Case

The dark secrets of the Kremlin unravel in this story of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko poisoned in November 2006 in London told in his own words and in interviews with his widow, his friends and his alleged killers. A story especially prescient given the recent leaks from MI5, which suggested that the assassination may have had approval from the Russian state.

During five years between his escape from Russia and his poisoning from radioactive Polonium-210, former FSB (ex-KGB) agent Alexander (Sasha) Litvinenko spent hours with filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov explaining the reasons for his rebellion and detailing the rise of the police state in Russia in the past decade.  His  narrative, interrupted by flashbacks into history, explains how the hopes for freedom and democracy after the collapse of Soviet Communism have been dashed by the war in Chechnya and the consolidation of power by President Vladimir Putin.

Litvinenko’s entanglement in the power struggle between his FSB employers and dissident oligarchs led to his arrest  and brief imprisonment followed by a daring escape with his family into the safety of political asylum in London.

His two former KGB colleagues who allegedly slipped Polonium-210 into his tea during a meeting in a London bar, denied any wrongdoing in an interview in Moscow. President Putin angrily rejected allegations of official involvement. But Litvinenko’s friends in the émigré community, and his widow Marina are not so sure…

Length: 103 mins
Directed by: Andrei Neksarov