so. you're watching r t the headlines now russian businessman puts a boot is given a minimum sentence of twenty five years in a new york court for conspiring to sell weapons to terrorists but a judge ruled there was no proof he would ever have committed the crimes it wasn't for us going off regime that's never. been the security council receives its toughest statement yet on syria calling on the authorities and the opposition to lay down arms unconditionally and within a week. french president nicolas sarkozy wins public support for his crackdown on senate radicals this is the faith of young muslims who say they feel rejected by

their own country. you know are frustrated reporter out. go on take that sandwich give it to him and standby. we'll go over it he seen a couple of times film director alexei issues your new movie about prison life he has won several top prizes of film festivals yes that's it the film director his actors have no expectation of public recognition or fame all they really want is to get away from this dismal scenery as soon as possible and never return forth but that's it thank you they call everybody. the film crews artistic freedom is confined to this high security jail petersburg. the actors cameramen and director all serving sentences the serious crime.

roll call finished return to your area. i don't write you'll toss that snowball from here. film studios run by inmates in russian colonies a not just for fun the aim is to rehabilitate prisoners their involvement in filmmaking is meant to help them reform and start a new life of basic camera is the only piece of equipment at the disposal of the prison produces the crew is normally made up of inmates who know how to handle video recording this colony is lucky there is professional film director serving his term among them. i mean it comes complete with one american leader once said the thinking is the hardest word theory is media award which is probably the reason why so few engage in it and. has anyone who has been involved in

filmmaking at least once and you will tell you need will let it sit there e exhausting job of people. notably what people in the straightforward various lines they have it at school and you will all fear a questionable existence he will be some purpose that. bowl. as a teacher's overing families slowly and letters the rooms banished in france the smell of skin the fruit with a. little heat like you. would say and movie forgive me one of the rewards of an international contest a film about prison in the dirt so became something of a t.v.

personality right. as a film is noted but a prison camp it's a film about treachery love and human integrity i mean yes eternal truths to stay alive inside and outside prison in short a war crime the car of course we can't physically make a film about anything but prison life becomes the knockers but that's a different story from the war. when the prison authorities realized the film directors works of to improve the cole and his image they began to take his work seriously last year when his i'd like to have two shooting areas are missing. ok i'll talk to the chief of the operation section hopefully he can help us aside from that is everything going according to plan yes valarie cheval of the man in charge of education at the colony is also the chief producer of unthought of the movies it is he who made sure the films shot in this high security camp don't push

the limits of what is permitted all members of the crew get together in the colonies clubhouse they want to discuss a new script and congratulate a film director on his success of the film festival and is proud to show off the top prize a gold plated watch or russia's ombudsman collected the prize on our behalf the chief warden gave me the watch and said here is the watch and drawing of what others can't wear such watches but you can inmates are not allowed to keep things made of precious metals here. when he was starting and for all of a hard time ups waiting prisoners in his movies they'd only do it for tea and cigarettes at the meeting the director gives a last piece of advice before filming begins. i read it if you thoughts to disagree play. whether it will criminals or law abiding people we're all god's creatures.

murderers rapists and drug traffickers make up the bulk of the inmates here each has been sentenced to at least eighty years in prison. has already served five years he was charged with murder after a drunken fight. and pleaded guilty he would have only been sentenced to six years instead of ten but he denied the charges in court maybe because he truly did not intend to kill anyone although he hoped to avoid punishment altogether. ninety percent of those who find themselves behind bars try to deny their guilt avoid punishment all of them say they aren't guilty each in mate has a story that is a rule has little in common with the official verdict. tell each other the films they make a clear cut they contain a plain message about good and evil for. truth and lies.

funding a woman for a female role in a male colony is a problem but they make an exception for if necessary easily for even a child to take part in his films. have changed i knew. for the better to look pretty and i would say mature. he's changed and he looked original because i miss you terribly i've been looking for what happened. yes. i'm going to get married. but. i never. think of is one of the gods the rules state that she is not to communicate with the inmates but she is ready to risk it because of her love of cinema you. know the city and if i'm here or has to marco the

psychological barrier between me and them i'll weepy in civilian clothes on the days when i shouldn't like now and not her intimates might have even then i realize the tides direct action. ok let's see if everything is alright from this angle. eureka both of is the male lead in and the new movie is agreed to take part because of the film's parallels with his life. beauty is serving a sentence for he spent six years behind bars with another six to go or anybody come in. come in. my name is alex see my name is a good one. i have a son too he was four years old when i was in prison. now he is ten we haven't seen each other in where little be exactly five years on the first of

march. it was less feel. good after i got into prison my wife often visited me here she would bring me parcels and circles with us. was a convert lasted for two years but then she told me she was seeing another man. will objecting to that would have been stupid on my part and she was young and i had another eleven years to serve and why should i make her suffer. how old are you. eight. the political story. the saddest thing is that a zero or dead to my parents i couldn't attend their funerals. it is my father died the day after the verdict was announced my mother followed him half a year later it's a shame i didn't accompany them on their final journey the fifth of course that my

wife has left me or that i still have a long term love to serve are the least of my worries. every inmate dreams about the great hollywood romance is shown in the film but in reality nobody ever comes to see either inmates cobalts off or until all of a lexie is even turned down an offer of large duty is merited by his prison filmmaking under such rules inmates are entitled to extra visits from relatives and more parcels see him again well i don't care about visits we can assume that i see no point and. yes wives are allowed to spend more time with their house counts it said but i'm not officially married us kill. my own no mother no father no grandmother and no grandfather. who would ever come to me. and the almost twenty two year old son was born by his first wife he lives in

a russian city far from here and he never comes to see his father sometimes on the lawn of talks with him over the phone which requires special permission. but it's my fault when i left them or tomb was just a little boy of the human voice of that age need a father more than anything else. alexei's daughter victoria is eight years old she was born elsewhere where to look victoria and her mother's for live in some petersburg they have never come here to see alexei he abandoned them when his daughter was a year in the whole of all those i think aleksey decided to break those bones he told me she wasn't ready to take responsibility for the child she said the prospect was too much for him it's against him enormously the thought that his life would be entirely changed on bearable i said to him. the tory. as for

me i want is a proper family some may not care about their relationships not been formalized but i do very much. the stamp in our passports testifying to our marriage would have meant a lot to me already is anyway i said ok to live call me sometimes that's how we parted after that he got carried away. this is what victoria wrote on a postcard she sent to her father happy valentine's day at a pub i love you very much. day inmates get together for a poetry recital. along.

on the longest. of. the polling on. the. island sunday off preside over the meeting nickname he's been generally acclaimed is the best poet in the camp his twenty years of life in prison have produced twenty three thick notebooks of poetry there are thousands of verses about love your words book winslow mission people think it should be about what it was like a patient book it took a seat you've sold expenditures you make it with you. it's usually which is actual solution because you know what alexander leo north killed seven people in cold blood one of his victims was

a woman i'm. not sure is that say much about him and there's a huge musician apparently on the mark with molly and a man in the wake of the recent military coup there are growing fears that his africans made plunging to protect civil strife. well for the future science technology innovation and all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. alexander leone of could hardly be described as a positive character but film director and thrown off could not find some of the more conflicted history for his first documentary alexander is a camp legend has crossed poles with the man in charge of the colonies education department valarie shovel off several times both are found themselves in the same

high security prisons shovel of as a prison administrator. as an inmate. i first saw him a long time ago. it was back when i was serving in a high security jail in the urals. is a strong willed me. for someone to survive in a russian jail and ensure all the movements from place to place without cracking is nothing to sneeze at. you i have applied for parole the law allows me to do that. i have already served one thousand years out of the total term of twenty five years i was thirty six years old when i was arrested and you know i'm almost fifty five which. the footage is from alexia documentary entitled the point of no return as all of his works this is

the one film the convicted director shot in the hope that people on the other side of the fence would see the main question of the film is addressed to society do they want his fellow inmate leo off to be set free head of. the question he's asked in the film is alexander imagine yourself walking around town and coming across europe victims' relatives what would be your reaction. frankly talking about this here is pointless i can only hope that they would recognize me after so many years i would rather avoid an encounter with them and make sure i never cross their paths. each morning alexander goes through a set of exercises of the car in the special forces to perfect their skills he is a perpetrator by training. to kill during the war in angola he was discharged from

the armed forces and went on to make short work of his enemies in the same cold manner the in make claims he eliminated business partners who had betrayed him. to expose the post-mortems the woman had a sixty asian i put her to sleep so to speak only pushed if you press some points on the human neck person will pass out never to wake up again. much of what he says is not true. at all of preferred a free wheeling lifestyle. never sought employment and instead took part in drinking outs with shady characters. it's not that he murdered people as a result of a brawl it was simply he and his drinking companions would make friends with someone and drink with him at his place and then kill him there was a layoff was given the death penalty for his killings he strangled most of his victims of the scar. leo was condemned to

die but he was on death row for just two years before president yeltsin introduced a moratorium on capital punishment and nine hundred ninety six. fellow inmates said to me alexander it seems to us that you get life imprisonment i prayed and went to face my fate and when i entered the room and was told i was now in for twenty five years instead of getting the death sentence i felt like i had been reborn and i had been stuck in prison for six years by then so another twenty five years was just a trifle. we wanted to meet relatives of his victims and show to them what sort of person lay all of the common. question is whether an inmate can reform . here is a man with nineteen years of confinement behind a man writing poetry demonstrating loyalty to the administration and abiding by the

law. man doing all he can to prove that he deserves a release from here. but then he already saw an act of humanity when his sentence was changed now he wants another is that the right thing to do with the right i'm still in two minds and that's why we wanted to meet the relatives of his victims to ask them. but the plan didn't come to pass therefore i've been telling him drawn of that his film is incomplete. which. the court turned down the plea for parole now he has to serve another five years to whittle away the time he acts in films all of his working on a roll in and thoughtless production. haruki . look around the room. each

day someone posing for you. convicts come here to the coolies industrial section of timber. and make plumbing fittings including all souvenirs. all of it will be applied to my outside the prison. most of those who do the hard physical work here see filmmaking is a way of shocking the routine labor of the scope society. they maintain that the public outside these fences takes little interest in films about prison life alexie on top of concedes that his movies i'm not most he says like. the girl well i wouldn't go so far as to describe it as a live action film you know it's just fooling around that's all there is to. prison slang and cheap special effects don't help his cause for instance in the movie. the only friend of the main character is a talking cat. and you're

a. was. it's me catch on so much. like the chill i run in while here. i see are scared of your own shadow john she sounds sound module your cat. this young man works as a sound engineer at a small theater in small and just he is twenty nine years old he left security prison only a year ago to six years since he had been sentenced to a few years for drug trafficking while in prison with a major prize winning the phil was one of the main factors that led to his early release. chapter for schools it was prison that paved the way to this

theater to be more. it was a legacy of drona that had not been for the film we made together and i wouldn't be here now that's for sure with the film festival was chaired by the theatres artistic director he liked our film and gave his business card saying give me a call when you get out of there and so happened that i was the first to get out. was the camera man and production skills he learned in prison his new drug his ambition was to make movies of his own but filming costs money and fully realizing his talent is still beyond his means. making a film in prison wasn't much of a problem the guys didn't need much broader to motivate them and they were only too willing to accept t.v. and cigarettes as pay. nowadays all the people working with director of a quite young his new camera man is twenty three years old i was the same age when

he was put behind us both fellows were convicted for the same crime drug trafficking. cuban rapper named is is yet another man serving a sentence for drug crimes. him to compose a soundtrack for his new film the convicted film director on the north doesn't care much about whether anybody outside needs his films he hopes that his films help leo and other young men learn new skills when they are released the director's wish is that they realize they are stronger more worthwhile things in this life than drugs . i yearn for that day when i'm released on parole and you know. there are still three years two months to go i thought. you know what i want to

return home so very much. so i work hard and try to be on my best behavior here on which it sits and i want to come to think of it from the two years are spent in the scholarly of taught me to manage my time properly in our society have also been learning new skills from the other inmates the soldiers the people here know how to teach that which is. my son he's a successful teaching the kids one day i told my wife and i know what the junos anger outside of the. drugs and all that stuff he had more often for the name of islam and she said will. i trust him so much i can't imagine him doing anything wrong the more i feel the same way i think cartoon want to fall into the trap. is come to realize that he was a bad father to his children he left them with their mother at

a time when they needed a father most of all he'll be fifty when he is set free in five years time after that he will have that earn his children's love again. she was south and fish and personally been a trouble free life. i think he has since taken a long hard look at his life. sometimes they just reeks people to make him realize that time is running out. just in that my son was to see me when i left. the state of the gosh i need to do so much to cure child.

with this prison term. i missed so much. alexy on the off received his first guest in four years. said lola his college mate brings him a gift he treasures most of all memories three hours creep away unnoticed as they recall highlights of a college day he's going to the see saw during the holidays and cutting class to watch new films. alexy decides to send the watch he won for his film forgive me to his son the.

various the new batch of conflict. bookmarks that one too. i. i. i am i i i i i i i i i i i i.

all. the.