Putin’s Kiss, Sunday on Global Voices

The ITVS-funded documentary Putin's Kiss by Lise Birk Pedersen airs Sunday, July 1 on Global Voices on the WORLD Channel.

Nashi is an increasingly popular political youth organization in Russia with direct ties to the Kremlin. Officially, its goal is to support the current political system by creating a future elite among the brightest and most loyal Russian teenagers. But the organization also works to prevent the political opposition from spreading their views among young people. 16-year-old Masha Drokova, a Nashi commissar and spokesperson, is an ambitious middle-class student from the outskirts of Moscow. After joining Nashi at the age of 15, she moves to the very top of the organization, and is rewarded for her dedication with a university scholarship, an apartment, and even a pro-Putin talk show. 

Everything changes when Drokova becomes acquainted with a group of liberal journalists, including popular anti-Putin reporter Oleg Kashin. At first, she remains devoted to Nashi while pursuing tentative friendships with its left-wing critics — but when Kashin is brutally beaten by "unknown perpetrators," she has a genuine change of heart and decides to take a stand. Watch a clip of the documentary after the jump. 

Putin's Kiss will premiere as part of the Global Voices series on the WORLD Channel, Sunday, July 1 at 10 p.m. (check local listings). Starting Monday, July 2, the documentary will be available to view in entirety online via PBS Video (for a limited time only).