‘Putin’s Kiss’ Captures Power of Russia’s Youth (VIDEO)

Danish Director Lise Birk Pedersen delivers first feature film and smash hit, ‘Putin’s Kiss,’ at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Watch Pedersen discuss the coming-of-age story and the powerful youth movement taking hold of Russian politics:

‘Putin’s Kiss,’ Pedersen’s first feature film, stole the show at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Debuting to rave reviews, Pedersen and her political documentary about Russian youth organization, Nashi, and it’s 19-year-old frontwoman Masha Drokova won the Documentary Cinematography Award.

“It’s about 19-year old Masha, who has made quite a career in Putin’s youth movement,” Pedersen explained. “She even once received a high-profile medal from Putin . She rises in this organization where the codex is that you support the President Putin and you work against the ones that criticize him. So there friends and enemies and at one point Masha becomes friends with one of the enemies and then the story starts rolling.”

Nashi, which translates as “ours,” has become a disciplined and lavishly funded instrument of Mr. Putin’s campaign since it’s creation in 2005. In the film, Director Pedersen introduces the Nashi organization through Masha Drokova and hopes people understand the personal and political struggles of her main character.

“Masha was a very good ambassador for a story about Nashi. I went around Russia to talk with a lot of young people around Masha’s age and we talked a lot of politics four years ago at the last Parliment election and the young people were not very articulate about politics,” Pedersen told genConnect. “But when I met Masha, she was just selling this dream about how Nashi was gong to make Russia the conqueror of the 21st century and how she and other people could be the young elite to change the country.”

For those who couldn’t catch the film’s premiere at the Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah, don’t worry. The film is set to premiere in several U.S. cities over the coming months and Pedersen hopes the film will find its way onto American television.

Follow genConnect at the Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, as we interview the people behind some of this year’s best independent films.

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Tags: featured, Lise Birk Pedersen, Masha Drokova, Nashi, Putin's Kiss, Russia, Sundance, sundance film festival 2012, the Sundance Film Festival, Vladimir Putin, youth-movement

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