Our New President - True/False Film Fest

Our New President

By turns hilarious, exhilarating and terrifying, this deep dive into the world of Russian (fake) news offers critical lessons about 21st-century propaganda.
Director: Maxim Pozdorovkin
Runtime: 1:18
In-person: director Maxim Pozdorovkin
Fest Year: 2018
Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election because of a curse from her visit with the mummy of an ancient Siberian princess — or perhaps by a man who stuck a doll with pins. Or at least that’s what things looked like from Russia. Director Maxim Pozdorovkin (Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, T/F 2013) splices footage from a complex cross-section of Russian media, including state-run outlets and more ad-hoc efforts. A pop star features a certain ex-reality TV star in his blingy, twitchy music video. A building in St. Petersburg hides hundreds of internet trolls doing anti-Hillary shift work. Ordinary Russians compose and perform post-election tribute songs. This exhilarating and terrifying deep dive into the world of Russian (fake) news offers critical lessons about the power and form of 21st-century propaganda. Whose President is this? Plays with “Graven Image” (dir. Sierra Pettengill, 11 min.), on the making and promoting of Georgia’s Stone Mountain, the KKK-built monument to the Confederate States. (AV)