Porn, politics and videotape: Russian producer treads new path

Agence France Presse — English
August 11, 2005 Thursday 6:44 AM GMT

MOSCOW Aug 11 — A raunchy porn-and-politics film featuring characters
based on two of the youngest and most photogenic leaders to emerge
from the former Soviet Union is to start shooting in Russia next week,
the film’s producer says.

The two main characters in the short film, entitled “Yulia,” are
referred to only by that name and as Mikhail, but the audience will
be left in no doubt that they are based on Ukrainian Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko, 44, and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, 37.

In the 26-minute film the two are shown holding a secret meeting in
Moscow, talking politics and making love in a helicopter flying over
the Russian-Georgian border, producer Alexander Valov told AFP.

Valov, a prominent Russian pop music producer, authored the script
with Aleksei Mitrofanov, a Russian nationalist politician from the
far right-wing Liberal Democratic Party.

“In the script, their surnames will not be used, nor their official
positions. There will be no diplomatic scandal,” Mitrofanov said.

But viewers should have no trouble guessing that the woman with the
trademark braid wound around her head is intended to be Tymoshenko,
the heroine of last year’s “orange revolution” in Ukraine that toppled
a pro-Russian government and replaced it with a pro-Western one,
the authors said.

Saakashvili came to power in a peaceful revolt dubbed the “rose
revolution” in November 2004, ousting the country’s veteran president
Eduard Shevardnadze.

Tymoshenko and Saakashvili are unpopular among many Russian
nationalists, who see them as anti-Moscow and pro-Washington.

Mitrofanov and Valov came up with the idea for an erotic comedy in a
restaurant after Mitrofanov claimed that Tymoshenko had made a secret
visit to Russia as prime minister.

Tymoshenko, who was appointed prime minister on February 4, is accused
of bribery by Russian prosecutors.

“I am not pursuing any political objectives with the production of
this film. For me it’s just business,” Valov said.

Yuliya is to be played by young Ukrainian porn star Elena Berkova,
20, and a little-known Armenian actor will play Mikhail, Valov said.

Valov said that if the film was successful he was considering a whole
series of erotic films featuring to political figures, including
Russian ones.