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You’ll Never Guess Where Oliver Stone Allegedly Got $5 Million to Make His Glowing Doc About Kazakhstan’s Ex-Authoritarian Ruler

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Oliver Stone’s 2021 documentary about Kazakhstan’s former authoritarian ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, reportedly received at least $5 million in funding from a charitable organization run by none other than Nazarbayev, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Qazaq: History of the Golden Man, directed by Igor Lopatonok, was released last year as both a feature film and an eight-hour miniseries. Stone produced the project and featured in it, interviewing Nazarbayev about his nearly 30-year reign in Kazakhstan, which began in 1991 and ended in 2019. The new report states that at least $5 million in funding for Qazaq came from the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan – Elbasy, which is overseen by, and literally named after, Nazarbayev.

What little attention Qazaq did receive was largely negative, with critics decrying the film for its glowing depiction of Nazarbayev (not dissimilar to Stone’s 2017 interview docuseries with Russian President Vladimir Putin). During his tenure in office, Kazakhstan’s resources (especially oil) helped enrich Nazarbayev’s family and cronies, while his government also faced stiff criticism for cracking down on free-speech and political expression. For instance, security forces killed and injured multiple people during protests in 2011, and many detained demonstrators claimed they were tortured. 

Nazarbayev also allegedly did what the super-rich all over the world do — launch a few charitable organizations to further horde his wealth. A previous OCCRP report found that charitable groups established by Nazarbayev while he was in office had amassed about $8 billion in assets (a golf course, shopping centers, luxury hotels, a private jet, etc.). It was through one of these organizations, the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan – Elbasy, that the $5 million in funding for Qazaq was funneled to Stone and Lopatonok. 

Stone did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment on the OCCRP report.

Upon the release of Qazaq last year, Stone and Lopatonok declined to discuss who’d funded the film with The Guardian, only denying that the Kazakh government was involved. (Stone said his pay was in line with what he usually gets as an interviewer and producer). Qazaq’s mysterious funding source was ultimately revealed in August by Kazakh journalist Mikhail Kozachkov, who obtained a contract between the Foundation and the government organization, the State Center for Support of National Cinema. The agreement stated that the Foundation would give the cinema center $7 million to “organize the production, presentation, and distribution” of Qazaq, then known as “Oliver Stone Documentary Film – Kazakhstan.” 

Following the revelation of the contract, the cinema center confirmed it had received $5 million from the foundation and passed it along to Lopatonok’s production company, Global 3 Pictures. No mention, however, was made of the other $2 million, and it’s unclear where that may have ended up. 

Allegedly taking $5 million from an authoritarian ruler’s charitable organization to make a movie about said authoritarian ruler obviously is not a great look for a self-serious documentarian like Stone; though, to be fair, accepting money and other kinds of support from ethically dubious sources is a time-honored tradition in movie making. For instance, we can think of at least one other prominent institution that’s allegedly tortured and slaughtered people around the globe and been actively involved in the production of myriad movies that boost its image: The U.S. military. 

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