Is it possible to kill the mistress of the President of Russia, and get away with it? Well, it depends on who you are!

SYNOPSIS:

http://www.magicalrealism.us/2013/06/08/russias-mistress/ Screenplay by, Lee A. Miller The director of the FSB, Victor Cherhyh, is a very good and old friend of the President of Russia, Alexander Grishin. Tom Ridge is an American writer working on a film about two drunks who steal Lenin’s body and drag it around Moscow taking pictures at various monuments. This is a highly dangerous topic and could lead to “political instability”. But, the President Grishin wants to do the film to “jam a stick in the eye of the communists”, his political enemy. President Grishin instructs Cherhyh to assign a young investigator to befriend Ridge and bring back information about the movie. The President wants the Lenin comedy done but doesn’t want it too radical or insulting. The project is simply interesting to him. The FSB director, is determined to protect the President and decides that the young investigator, Sergey Grishkovets, should act as his direct liaison to the film and to Ridge to gather information about whether the filmmakers make the film with moderation. The rule for the film seems to be, “No urination on the corpse.” Ridge only writes fiction and film scripts set in Russia. He doesn’t even speak Russian well enough to fit in perfectly, but has rejected the American film markets, or perhaps the American film market has rejected him. At a bookstore/cafe in Moscow, Tom Ridge meets a young woman (former Olympic Gymnast), Svetlana Sharapova, and the two immediately begin an affair. Grishkovets follows the couple and he photographs them together in public and returning to her apartment. Svetlana however is also involved with someone else — President Grishin. During travel to rural Russia supervising a film, Ridge grows impatient and tells the film crew he isn’t leaving Moscow ever again. Evidently, he is returning to be with his new love, Svetlana. He returns to Moscow to supervise the comedy about Lenin’s body. Soon after, Ridge finds out that the other man in Svetlana’s life is a important “government official”, who only minutes later learns of her infidelity. Ridge leaves the apartment just before Grishin arrives. In his surveillance of Ridge leaving, Grishkovets sees President Grishin enter Svetlana’s apartment. He is about to take photos of Grishin entering but his camera malfunctions. While demanding the name of her new lover, Grishin slaps Svetlana in a jealous rage, knocking her off an indoor balcony to her death. Ready to turn himself in, Grishin is persuaded by his friend Cherhyh to cover up everything and blame it on someone else. And since Svetlana’s unknown lover (???) might have seen something and when she comes up missing may figure out that the killer is the President, he is now a target for assassination. They concoct a story that Svetlana’s lover is a foreign spy. Grishin leaves the apartment and Cherhyh sweeps the rooms for evidence. He removes the hard drive from her new computer. In the aftermath, they order Grishkovets, to forget investigating the film and focus all attention on an attempt to capture this “spy” and “murderer”. The problem is Grishkovets knows that Grishin was there the night of the murder. Please note that the FSB director Cherhyh riskily appoints the young investigator to lead the investigation to find Svetlana’s other lover, foolishly placing Grishkovets in the position of finding evidence that could implicate the President. Ridge is depressed that Svetlana has disappeared and (that she may have been killed) is at a cafe drinking coffee. Ridge seems to have lost his nerve. The young FSB investigator is sitting near Ridge and the American writer notices his gun under his coat. Ridge confides to Grishkovets that he had an affair with a woman who had a “powerful lover” and now the girl has disappeared. But Ridge remembers something Svetlana told him that she had sensitive photos on a hard drive that had stopped working. And that she put it in the closet and had bought a new computer. Ridge also remembers Svetlana telling him that her “high ranking lover” gave her an expensive jewelry box. Grishkovets returns to the crime scene. The only forensic evidence in the case is the jewelry box and a discarded and damaged hard-drive recovered from Svetlana’s closet, which requires lengthy computer processing to become usable. The semen found in Svetlana’s vagina; though mentioned, it is not pursued in the film. Given the fact that the highest powers are obviously involved, too thorough an investigation might not be too wise. Grishkovets tells the lab not to test the semen. Cherhyh has left two important piece of evidence — the hard drive in the closet and the one of a kind jewelry box. The young investigator pleads with FSB systems analyst and friend Nikolay Kirillov to be careful with the results, and tells him about Svetlana and the President. Meanwhile, the investigator sets about proving the President was involved with Svetlana by searching the internet for evidence that Grishin gave Svetlana a gift he had previously received from the Prime Minister of Turkey. He finds a photo online of the Turkish Prime Minister handing the unique gift to Grishin on an official visit. Cherhyh harasses Nina Mustafina, a close friend of Svetlana’s, for the name of the other lover by threatening deportation back to Uzbekistan, then sends assassins to kill her. She knows too much, but Grishkovets rescues her. A patriotic but suspicious Kirillov goes to the FSB director with concerns about what Grishkovets told him. Realizing that Nikolay can implicate the President, the FBS director shoots and kills him. The order goes out to the FSB and Kremlin guards that the investigator Grishkovets is the “spy”. Orders are to shot him on sight. Grishkovets knows the entire story and must be killed for the story to remain secret. The Kremlin is sealed and there is a massive search for Grishkovets. Grishkovets obtains the photos from the hard-drive and presents it to the Russian President, who then shifts the blame for the murder to Cherhyh, arguing that the FSB director is a homosexual and was jealous of his relationship with Svetlana. A devastated Cherhyh commits suicide in the President’s office and then is falsely exposed as “the American spy” to the Kremlin police by the President, hoping to escape blame for Svetlana’s death. The search for the spy now finished, the young investigator, who has saved the American writer and has solved the case, is finally able to leave the Kremlin with the evidence in his pockets — the hard drive, the printed pictures of Svetlana and the President, the jewelry box and pictures taken by the press of the Turkish leader giving the jewelry box to the President. He can, if needed, ruin the President with this evidence. AND NOW FOR THE SHOCKING ENDING — As Ridge sits beside Svetlana’s grave, the investigator comes to talk to him. During the cemetery talk it becomes clear that both Grishkovets and Ridge are American spies. Grishkovets is in fact the real “spy”, and Ridge is his CIA supervisor. As a young man, Grishkovets was planted in the USSR and became the CIA’s “mole” in the new Russia. Although Ridge seems to have loved her (he is weeping at her grave), he was working for the American government. Aware of the Russian President’s affair, the Americans assigned Ridge to seduce Grishin’s mistress to blackmail them and gather intelligence. The question of the criminal evidence comes up in the graveside conversation. Ridge tells Grishkovets, “We don’t want political instability in Russia so Washington wants the evidence destroyed.” Although Ridge asks that Grishkovets return to the USA, the young investigator refuses. And as Grishkovets leaves the cemetery, Ridge says, “You will return. Where else do you have to go?” The film ends with the young investigator getting into his car and going out for a drive.

RUSSIA’S MISTRESS

http://www.magicalrealism.us/2013/06/08/russias-mistress/