Igor Lopatonok, a US filmmaker with a history of promoting pro-Russian narratives, sought to create flattering documentaries of authoritarian leaders, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to a special report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Lopatonok, in collaboration with acclaimed Hollywood director Oliver Stone, has produced two documentaries about Ukraine, which were widely dismissed as pro-Kremlin propaganda, as well as an eight-part hagiographic miniseries about Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Leaked plans obtained by OCCRP and Vlast.kz show Lopatonok intended to feature Hollywood director Stone as the films’ interviewer. It’s unclear if Stone knew the full extent of the proposals, but none of the documentaries came to fruition.
Lopatonok aimed to paint Turkey’s Erdoğan as a strong defender of the country’s interests. The proposed film would highlight Erdoğan’s goals and accomplishments.
“Erdogan is a Turk and hardly needs to be basing his actions on the interests of other countries. But what interests does he have? Can he restore the Great Silk Road? And does he really have expansionist plans? What is Erdogan trying to achieve? He should answer these questions himself. And only himself. We should not try to divine [Erdogan’s plans] from coffee grounds, even if it is magnificent Turkish coffee that they know how to make only in Istanbul,” the report cited a synopsis as saying.
While Erdoğan’s level of interest is unknown, the proposal aimed to cast his leadership in a favorable light.
These revelations highlight Lopatonok’s pattern of using Stone’s fame to lend legitimacy to authoritarian regimes. Stone’s past documentaries, including those on Russian President Vladimir Putin, have been criticized for their sympathetic view of strongmen.
In a 2018 interview İbrahim Kalın, the then-spokesman for President Erdoğan, confirmed that they had received a pitch for a documentary about Erdoğan around the same time that Stone was in Turkey.
“We are looking at it, we are evaluating it,” Kalın said. “I know the series he made for Mr. Putin before.”
The report also features plans to make similar films for leaders like Aliyev and Lukashenko.