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According to international research, Oscar winner Oliver Stone offered his services to the autocrats of Belarus and Kazakhstan. The director has previously attracted attention with uncritical portraits of Putin.
His critical films changed America. For example, his blockbusters about the Vietnam War, his film about the assassination of John F. Kennedy or his biography about the whistleblower Snowden. Now international research shows: Oliver Stone does not shy away from being close to autocrats.
In 2017 he filmed a series of interviews about Russian President Vladimir Putin. And in 2021, a documentary was made about former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who ruled the country with a hard hand for almost 30 years.
Stone is planning on a grand scale
Internal documents are now said to show that Oliver Stone planned further autocrat portraits – including a documentary about the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s long-term ruler Ilham Aliyev.
However, the films were not made because of the war in Ukraine, among other things. This is what they report ZDF program “Frontal”the “Tages-Anzeiger”the “Spiegel”, the “Standard”, the Russian investigative medium “iStories”, the research network “OCCRP” and the Kazakh investigative portal “Vlast” on Tuesday.
“Shitocracy” instead of democracy?
Internal emails are said to prove that Stone responded to the autocrat’s wishes for his film “Qazaq – History of the Golden Man” about Nazarbayev and only acted as a keyword – but there is no criticism. Stone did not even contradict Nazarbayev when he denigrated democracy as a “shitocracy” – a “shit-socracy”.
Oliver Stone probably just quietly sold his reputation.
A whistleblower told ZDF about the reasons for Stone’s involvement: “Money. Just money!” Stone himself was not interested in the history of Kazakhstan.
The producer of the Kazakhstan documentary, Igor Lopatonok, however, denies the influence of the Kazakh side: Nobody ordered Oliver Stone “which questions to ask”. However, he confirms that Stone knew about the existence of the plans for the other autocrat documentaries.
Investigative journalist Joanna Lillis from Kazakhstan tells ZDF: “Oliver Stone’s role is basically to be a propagandist for Nazarbayev. Oliver Stone as an interviewer and the film as a medium are the vehicles for Nazarbayev to spread his own propaganda.
Once your reputation is ruined…
Why would a Hollywood star do this to himself? Oliver Stone always saw himself as a critical spirit, says SRF film editor Michael Sennhauser: “He always kept a critical eye on the USA and its contradictions.” But: Stone is now 77 years old and is struggling with a loss of importance. “He increasingly developed a fascination with autocrats,” said Sennhauser.
His reputation changed at the latest with his Putin interviews. “In principle, he did the same thing back then as the dismissed Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson recently did: interviewing Putin in order to boost his own media status,” said Sennhauser.
The now revealed plans for the autocrat interviews were probably primarily about money, said Sennhauser. “Oliver Stone probably just quietly sold his reputation.”