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Efforts to improve his image brought Ilham Aliyev to Hollywood.
Investigative journalists found out that the leader of Azerbaijan wants to appear in the same frame with the famous American director Oliver Stone, who conducted interviews with a number of dictators.
Documents at the disposal of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, document that Igor Lopatenok, a pro-Kremlin director with Ukrainian roots, prepared a script for a film about the leader of Azerbaijan, in which Oliver Stone will interview Aliyev.
The Hollywood star already has a respectable track record of controversial interviews that please dictators, and in the past years he has also appeared with Putin and Nazarbayev.
And Lopatenok, according to OCCRP, also wrote a movie script about the president of Turkey, as well as the long-time leader of Belarus.
“Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko and Ilham Aliyev are accused of terrible crimes against their own citizens. However, where the world sees brutal dictators, Igor Lopatenok sees opportunities,” writes the authoritative media that unites investigative journalists.
It is not clear from the leaked documents when the film about Aliyev will be shot, but there are details about its goals. the director “offered the authoritarian leader to raise his reputation on international platforms”.
In one of the presentations (it has two titles: “Oliver Stone’s Documentary” and “On Ilham Aliyev and Azerbaijan”), it is said that Stone will “meet face to face” with the country’s leader and discuss not only his “presidency path, but also Azerbaijan’s bright and fascinating story”, OCCRP journalists are quoted as saying.
Moreover, in the script, the author emphasizes that the screening “will have an exceptionally positive effect on the public image of Azerbaijan and the president”.
Aliyev inherited power from his father 20 years ago, appointed his wife as his deputy, removed from the Constitution the ban on running for more than two times, and a month ago he was re-elected for the fifth time as president. Freedoms are severely limited in the country he leads, there are more than 200 political prisoners behind bars, including dozens of journalists. Human rights organizations compare the level of freedom in Azerbaijan with Afghanistan, Sudan, and Tajikistan. Many journalistic investigations document that the ruling family in the country rich in energy resources owns large companies, including oil companies.
Over the past years, the OCCRP has uncovered the vast assets of the ruling family of Azerbaijan hidden in various offshore locations and Baku’s ingenious schemes to bribe Western politicians.
Oliver Stone, meanwhile, will not discuss these issues with Aliyev, but the “success” of the country ruled by the “Aliyev” dynasty.
Journalists notice that the script of the film leaves no questions about the content of the interview. – “Aliyev is presented as a “worthy heir of his father”, a “wise leader”.
“Is the governance model chosen by the Azerbaijani authorities really that bad?” Can you call the current system of government a “cult of personality”? Or do the people simply respect their leader, who brought the country out of poverty and turned it into a flourishing and developing state,” the leaked document states.
Speaking to OCCRP, Lopatenok confirmed that Stone was aware of the scripts about the dictators (the director called them his “heroes”). “There is no sensation in it,” said the director and threatened the investigating journalists.
The Hollywood star himself neither denied nor confirmed his involvement in the sensational film projects authored by Lopatenok.
“I’m also working with partners on another feature film, the subject of which is under wraps until it’s ready to shoot,” Oliver Stone wrote in X.
According to the leak, the cost of this screening is 15 million dollars, which OCCRP estimates is three times the cost of the film about the former leader of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Journalists note that it is not clear from the leaked documents what stage the film project is at.
“We are not talking about a documentary film, we are talking about a film that has one goal: to clear the reputation of dictators,” Vyacheslav Abramov, the co-author of the investigation, emphasizes, calling “Hollywood’s ethical standards” problematic.
“I think that such a film reflects the activities aimed at “washing” the image through culture, sports (on a large scale), international events, conferences,” says Alexander Cooley, professor of political science at Barnard College in New York.
The professor is referring to the “Formula-1” tournament, the Islamic Solidarity Games, a number of major musical events that official Baku organizes, not hiding that the goal is to raise the country’s international reputation.
According to Cooley, leaders of post-Soviet countries often try to present themselves as “reformers”. “Such rulers always have lobbyists, but reputation washing gives more weight and credibility to their claims about modernization intentions,” the professor emphasized.
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