the source material is one hopes he was and. we want to present. something. you're watching live from moscow on news now a with your headlines thousands rally behind president also out in the syrian capital with the regime blaming terrorists groups for escalating violence the head of the cease fire deadline as the u.n. denounces damascus for research attacks. always new military leaders agreed to hand power to civilians to end the sanctions imposed by the embattled african countries neighbors nations parliamentary speaker is to be sworn in as interim president and

will organize elections within forty days. but on this concert of record unemployment leave investors cagey over whether spain can really escape a ballad out kills thirty has drawn hundreds of thousands of people out in protest they said the government's leaving them on the breadline. next meet a former russian prisoner who turned from fallon to filmmaker. go on take that sandwich give it to him and standby. we'll go over the scene a couple of times film director alexei is shooting in new movie about prison life he has won several top prizes of film festivals yes that's it the film director and 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 to earth but that's it thank you they've called everybody. the film crews artistic

freedom is conforming to his high security jail me a saint petersburg. the actor's camera man and director all serving sentences a serious crime. roll call finished return to your area. i'm right you'll toss that snowball from here. film studios run by inmates in russian colonies and 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 a basic camera is the only piece of equipment at the disposal of the prison produces a crew is normally made up of inmates who know how to handle video recording this colony is lucky there is a professional film director serving his term among them. i mean he comes competing

against the will one american leader once said we thinking is the hardest word theories meteor award which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. has anyone that has been involved in filmmaking at least once and you think will tell you the typical very exhausting job of robots capable. military what if any straightforward various lines they get it at school and you will off their questionable existence see what it will be some propose that. bowl ring it is that there's a teacher's family is slowing and letters the room sanish two brands

peace let's give a few that will get the heap like you. a leg say and a lot of some movie forgive me won an award as an international contests a film about prison the juric soap became something of a t.v. personality or moving thing as a film is not about a prison camp going to be a chest it's a film about treachery love and human integrity from yes eternal truths that 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 but i'm strong enough but that's a different story but it won't. when the prison authorities realized the film directors work so to improve the color his image they began to take his work seriously was near an easel and i'd like to have two shooting areas it's and hit 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 and all of the movies it is he who make 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 kohli's clubhouse they want to discuss a new script and congratulate the film's director on his success of the film festival and the role of is proud to show off the top prize a gold plated watch or brushes 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 see mates are not allowed to keep things made of precious metals here. when he was starting and thrown off had a hard time persuading prisoners to act in his movies they'd only do it for t.v.

and cigarettes at the meeting the director gives a last piece of advice before filming begins. valid if you thoughts to the screenplay. whether 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 he just mate has

a story that as a rule has little in common with the official verdict unlike what your mates tell each other the films they make a clear cut they contain a plain message about good and evil friend and truth. funding a woman for a female role in a male colony is a problem but they make an exception for if necessary you can easily for even a child take part in his films. have changed i knew. for the better. it looked and i would say much. has changed here we. have been missing you terribly i've been looking for you ask what happened. yes you and them to get married.

is one of the 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. i know this any any time dear or helpful is to mark how the psychological barrier between me and them i only pee in civilian clothes on the days when i shouldn't like now and not tiring so much when i can't even then i realize the tide strict attention. ok let's see if everything is alright from this angle. is the male lead in a new movie he has agreed to take part because of the film's parallels with his own life. yuri is serving a sentence for murder he spent six years behind bars with six to go. come in.

plus. my name is alex e. my name is ignored. i have a son too he was four years old when i was in prison just. now he is ten we haven't seen each other in well it'll be exactly five years on the first of march. as muscle blog after i got into prison my wife often visited me here she would bring me parcels circles which she also. was part of that 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 she was young and i had another eleven years to serve her why should i make her suffer. how old are you eight eight. both a political story. and the saddest thing is that i owed that to my parents i couldn't

attend their funerals since 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 for fear of course that my wife has left me but 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 film but in reality nobody ever comes to see you the inmates go both off or until all of alexey is even turned down an offer of large duty he has merited by his prison filmmaking under such rules inmates are entitled to extra visits from relatives and more parcels. i don't care about theirs it's making me see that i see no point in them. yes wives are allowed to spend more time with their husbands. but i'm not officially married q.

i have no mother no father no grandmother and no grandfather. who will 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 wall of talks with him over the phone which requires special permission we gave him it's my fault when i left them our tomb was just a little boy even the boys of that age need a father more than anything else like us. alexei's daughter victoria is eight years old she was born elsewhere wedlock victoria and her mother live in st petersburg they have never come here to see alexei he abandoned them when his daughter was a year in the whole of. alexey decided to break those bones she told me she wasn't

ready to take responsibility for the child she said the prospect was too much for him it's a paint him enormously. to thought that his life would be entirely changed on bearable i said to him. in the tory. as for me i want you to prove her family some may not care about their relationships not been formalized but i do very much in your. temper in our passports testifying to our marriage which have meant to lots of me already is in any way i said ok. sometimes that's how we parted but after that he got carried away. this is what victoria wrote on a postcard she sent to her father happy valentine's day adding papa i love you very much.

and soon valentine's day inmates get together for a poetry recital. on the obvious. the. oh. oh. i like sunday presides over the meaty nickname leone he's been generally acclaimed as the best poet in the camp has twenty years of life in prison and produced twenty three thick notebooks of poetry there are thousands of verses about love if you were in school mission critical then you should be public it was like it should work to get something seriously

expensive if you make it if you have it usually works. if you're serious because you know what alexander leone off killed seven people in cold blood one of his victims was a woman. alexander

leona could hardly be described as a positive character a film director and thrown off could not have found someone with a more conflicted history for his first documentary alexander is a camp legend he 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 creation something i first saw him a long time ago a little while for that was back when i was serving in a high security jail in the urals. is a strong willed man. 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 nineteen years out of the total term of twenty five years i was thirty six years old when i . arrested move now i'm almost fifty five which. the footage is from a legacy a documentary entitled the point of no return as all of his works this is the one film the convict to direct a shot in the hope the 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 the head of troy. russell 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. but

frankly talking about this here is pointless i can only hope that they wouldn't recognize me have to so many years i would rather avoid an encounter with them and make sure i never cross their paths. each morning alexander leo off goes through a set of exercises of the car in the special forces to perfect their skills he is a perpetrator by training the on off learn 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 inmate claims he eliminated business partners who had betrayed him. to assure them at the post mortem said the woman had died of a sixty asian i put her to sleep so to speak and if you press some points on the human next person will pass out never to wake up again. of what he says is not true. preferred

a free wheeling lifestyle. never sort of meant and instead took part in drinking bouts 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 given the death penalty for his killings he strangled most of his victims of a 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 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 with dry

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 personally all of have become a. question is whether an inmate can reform here is a man with nineteen years of confinement behind him 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 it's not the right thing to do. i'm still in two minds 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 undrawn of that his film

is incomplete. which. the court turned down the almost plea for parole now he has to serve another five years to whittle away the time he acts in films is working on a role in and develops production. where is there hark you. look around the room. each day some one thousand five hundred combat. come here to the coolies industrial section see timber. and make plumbing fittings clothing all through phineas. all of it will be afraid tomorrow outside the prison where. most of those who do the hard physical work here see filmmaking is a way to shocking the routine labor the help society. they maintain that the public outside these fences takes little interest in films about prison life alexie and

one of concedes that his movies annoys most he says what. the hell 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 lakes he's movie go the only friend of the main character is a talking. out loud angry. was. it's me ya can't shine son it sounds. like the show i run into while here. i see are scared of your own shadow parents on my dear camera. this young man world's sound engineer at

a small theater in some peaches in the good in his twenty nine years old he left security prison only a year ago to six years and sorry he had been sentenced to eight in the course he is for drug trafficking while in prison with a major prize winning phil was one of the main factors that led to his early release. it was prison that paved the way to this theater to be more exact it was a lot. it said it had not been for the film we made together and i wouldn't be here now that's for sure but i will go with the film festival was chaired by the theatres artistic director he liked our film and gave alexa his business card saying give me a call when you get out of there it so happened that i was the first to get out. was the camera man and the production the skills he learned in prison his new drug

his ambition now is to make movies. 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 brought him to motivate them they were only too willing to accept t.v. and cigarettes as pay. nowadays all the people working with director of a quite young is new camera man team 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 i. am. cuban rapper leo nine days is yet another man serving a sentence for drug crimes alexei i asked him to compose a soundtrack for his new film the convicted film director and the north doesn't

care much about whether anybody outside meets 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 the day when i'm released on parole and the last off there are still three years two months to go. you know and i want to return home so very much. his her car struck so i work hard to unst try to be on my best behavior here on much etc i would come to think of it from the two years are spent in this colony of taught me to manage my time properly in our choices but i've also been learning new skills from the other inmates is still true that people here know how to teach them. my son he's a successful teaching that one day i told my wife of twenty i know what they do in

those hangouts on the list for i mean drugs and all that stuff via google for the new movie and she said. 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 that trap. says 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 toy of that he will have to earn his children's love again. just that she was a self-sufficient person live in a trouble free line. i think he has since taken a long hard look at his life. sometimes thing to greeks people to make them realize that time is running out.

just in that my son was to see me when i left. the gosh i need to do so much to cure chop. wood this prison term. i missed so much. of. alexy on the off receives his first guest in four years. said lola his college mate for him a gift he treasures most of all memories three hours creep away unnoticed as the recalls highlights of a college day going to the seaside 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. there's a new batch of convicts. there after their. march one too but i i i. i. i i i am i i i

i i i i i i i i i. home. from.