Putin humiliated as AI technology used to place Russian president in nappies for new film
Vladimir Putin has been humiliated in a film that uses AI to show the Russian president wearing nappies.
The new film, titled “Putin,” is the new masterpiece of Polish director Patryk Vega, who is best known for his gory crime films.
The movie, which also features the Russian president working as a taxi driver, terminally ill in a hospital and cheating on his wife, has been described by Vega as the world’s “first deepfake” film.
AI technology was used to place Putin’s face on that of actor Slawomir Sobala, who carefully studied the president’s mannerisms and body language to best portray him.
The director’s goal was to show the sides of Putin that people do not often see – fear and weakness.
Speaking to Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Vega said: “Everyone is afraid of Vladimir Putin [but] in my film, he is a terrified man who is terrified of death. I wanted to expose Putin, to let the audience get extremely close to the caged tiger and show them that this tiger is also afraid.”
The film, which is set to be released this month, uses real footage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the carpet-bombing of Chechnya under Putin. He is also portrayed ordering the assassination’s of his rivals.
The film starts off by showing Putin as a young boy, learning Judo to stand up for himself in post-war Leningrad – now St. Petersburg.
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It then follows the president through various real -and some fake- life scenarios, such as being the member of a hunting party whose prey is a group of half-naked women and terminally ill in a hospital wearing nappies.
He is also seen getting into a fight while driving a taxi in his hometown, and leaving his wife Lyudmila for Olympic gold-medal winning gymnast Alina Kabaeva.
“I was convinced that the audience needed to see the real Putin on screen in my film. They see him every day in the media — even the best actor with great make-up wouldn’t convincingly portray a figure everyone in the world knows so well,” Vega
Vega admitted he took some artistic license with the details of Putin’s biography, since Putin is known to be very sensitive about his private life.
The director said the film has already attracted the attention of Kremlin agents, and recounted how he was contacted by one over social media.
“I had a really funny experience with Russian intelligence,” he said at the Cannes Film Festival last year. “They took from LinkedIn whole numbers of mobile phones for my crew and started messaging these people, saying things like, ‘I am an assistant to a congressman from South Dakota. I hear you made this film. My boss would like to pay $100,000 for a screening of this movie, and also for a script’.’’
Vega said the messages stopped once he asked them to send the money to Agencja Wywiadu, the Polish version of MI6.
The biopic will be released in 35 countries, including Britain and the UK. However some in the industry are reportedly worried for their safety.
Speaking to the Screen Daily website, Vega said: “One public relations company in the United States said they were afraid that Putin would hit their building by rocket.”
“Putin” took 18 months to make, with a $15million budget. Scenes were shot in Poland, Israel, Syria, Jordan and Ukraine. The director even claimed some footage was filmed undercover in Russia with a concealed camera.
The film will not be released in Russia.