Interview with Mike Lerner (Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer)

The brilliant documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is due to be released this year telling the story of the all girl punk band who were arrested in Russia after performing one of their songs in a cathedral.

I managed to talk to Mike Lerner (director) this week in order to discuss the film and the politics behind it.  Here is an abridged version of the conversation:

[Ollie] How did you get involved with the project?  Do you have any links with Russia?

[Mike] Well I’ve made a lot of art and cultural films and I know Russia and the former Soviet Union very well.  I grew up in the ‘70s as a punk so the image of them [Pussy Riot] in the British press back in January immediately sparked something in me (laughs).  I love films about art and politics and this was obviously a tremendous story, of course, after they had been arrested, so we got involved after they were arrested for this absurd act.  We flew to Moscow and started to get involved with everybody the legal team and the friends and family.  We followed the events across the Summer until the verdict in October, dashed back to New York to cut the film for Sundance in January.

Of course the story is still ongoing, not a week passes without some sort of Pussy Riot news, whether it is Maria’s hunger strike or the upcoming Olympics, which I think will be a big focus for pro-Pussy Riot, anti-Putin rallies.

I really enjoyed that in the middle of the film you gave the film a bit of time to look back at [Nadia, Masha and Katia’s] upbringings and their early political beginnings.  How did you get access to the Carriers of the Cross [an extreme religious organization that opposes Pussy Riot]?

Well these people are obsessed with themselves and are very easy to get on camera, they wanted to demonstrate their beliefs at every possible opportunity.  So actually you just ask them and they’ll give you whatever you want!  We were thinking of making a reality TV series with them, as clearly they are a quite humorous bunch…  But actually they represent a potentially violent and quite horrible element in Russian society – an extreme nationalist / religious outpouring, which is something that Putin has very much encouraged and provoked.  Indeed the whole Pussy Riot trial is very much a product of this.

 It wasn’t only that Pussy Riot offended belief; they offended the church and therefore the state.  They have been characterized as foreign agents trying to undermine the state and yet the truth is far from that – they are very patriotic young women who are trying to create a more just society for their children to live in.

One of the questions I wanted to ask is about the religious misunderstanding and the difference between the American reactions to the film versus the European.  Obviously there is a big difference between our religious tolerance and dissidents.  Do the anti-pussy riot commentators vary in each country?

It’s a good question; I think that the Russian communities in America are very conservative, as is typical of ex patriot communities.  They are very much against Pussy Riot, and I think that what it interesting is that they have had a lot of support coming from Republican senators and from the right, yet if they really delved into what Pussy Riot stood for and believed in then perhaps they wouldn’t be so supportive – yet they see it as a very simple anti-Putin, pro-freedom of speech story.  It does seem to fit with a kind of nostalgia for the cold war where we have seen a kind of return to cold war rhetoric in America in regards to Russia.  I think that people are hankering for those days.  I think that most politicians who support them wouldn’t for a second if they knew what they were really about – it’s a healthy paradox.

So, is it even feasible to show this film in Russia itself – can you imagine that happening?

Actually we have been accepted into a Moscow arts film festival in November, which we are looking forward to.  What interesting is that one of the many pieces of legislation that have occurred since the trial is that the definition of the Pussy Riot video as an extremist video, so anybody that hosts it online is actually breaking the law, so we obviously have elements of that so it seems like our film is banned before it is even shown. 

We do genuinely want Russian people to see this film because then they can perhaps understand that these women aren’t crazed hooligans but rational patriots who simply wanted to have a more tolerant society.

I think one of my favourite single shots in the film is near the end of the film when they’re sat in the glass cage waiting for the verdict and the courtroom police are telling them to be quiet.  They respond by saying ‘why wont the press hear us speak’ –  there is an obvious irony there.

Yes - there are many ironies in this film

I like that when the film began it feels like a music documentary and then it becomes a courtroom drama, which is obviously very exciting, and even though I know what happens at the end, tragically, you still have a nice pacing to the film.  I wanted to ask whether this – and I don’t mean this to be insulting – but is the film preaching to the converted?  Who is your target audience really?

I guess as I said before ideally it is for those people who have misunderstood the girls, and maybe this film is an opportunity for those [audiences] to understand them.  Maybe that is a naïve hope and maybe you could possibly be right that the main audience for the film is people who already dig them and think that they’re great.

I don’t mean this in a bad way…

I don’t take it in a bad way.  I think that it is very difficult, as inside Russia especially there has been so much propaganda; the state channels ran a whole series of documentaries about how evil Pussy Riot are and the state media was incredibly one-sided against them.  So it would be great to have the opportunity to put their case forward in a more thorough way…

It still surprise me how many people in the west are still anti [Pussy Riot], and think that they got what they deserved – they think that freedom of speech is not as important as even being perceived to be insulted.  I think that that is very disturbing.

One of the most disturbing moments for me was when the prosecution lawyer, when she was talking about the people she represented as ‘victims’. [The people inside the church who witnessed the protest] I couldn’t understand what she really meant by that.

I was so proud, or maybe pride is the wrong word, but when they stood up in court and said “we do not understand these charges” – I actually felt a single tear to be honest…

I completely agree, I think that this is historic stuff.

Can I just ask one final question?  Vladimir Putin is in the UK right now – do you think she should be given the reverence, because he is kind of the bogeyman - in America especially but even here in the UK, do you think that he is as scary as people think he is?  You mention in the film that he could be in power until 2024…

Well, I think that the fact that he has put these girls in prison for, you know, dancing a bit show how frightened he is and how insecure he is.  It is something that has embarrassed the Russian judiciary, religious and political system I think for years to come.  It seems like a fatal mistake and that in the long term the political discourse and consciousness of young Russians has been altered forever and people are perhaps more aware of the need for tolerance and progressive ideas than ever before.  So in the short term he has won a PR victory but in the long term, who knows – Methinks he doth protest too much.  Anybody who was secure would have just ignored this whole thing and seen it as a ridiculous waste of time, but he has sought to get as much mileage out of this. 

Famously, when Putin was in London for the Olympics apparently David Cameron did raise the issue over their tea in Downing Street and [Angela] Merkel very famously in public questioned him on this, and Hollande has…  It is kind of an embarrassing ongoing saga.

Final question!  Can you think of any other bands, or movements, who are doing anything even remotely similar in any other country?  They seem so wonderfully unique – so anarchic.

I think that they have been inspired by events and situations in the past.  There are some punk rock demonstrators in Indonesia – their were some protestors who were forced to have their heads shaved and be rehabilitated.  I think that the punk spirit is inspiring contemporary movements around the world, in Burma etc.

The militant feminism that Pussy Riot represent is being replicated in different parts of the world such as Ireland, India, the Middle East, Egypt – I think that they have really inspired, maybe not the sole inspiration, some very hands-on, very proactive, very we’re-not-going-to-take-this-shit-anymore feminism.  Which is absolutely wonderful and about time.  It is quite incredible how little progress the issue of gender equality had made in the last 20 years in every society, look at the Saatchi/Nigella Lawson case…he is clearly an abusive character and society shouldn’t tolerate this bullshit.

I remember when Thatcher died earlier in the year, everyone was talking about women’s place in leadership roles – It was so horribly patronizing…

I think the guardian did publish a survey that showed in terms of pure economic wellbeing the fact that women are worse off now than they were ten years ago on every level: quality of pay, opportunity etc.  It’s incredibly depressing so we do need Pussy Riot.  We need a hundred Pussy Riots to get this thing shifted.  It’s laziness and fear that’s not getting this thing changed, we have changed in the past but we’ve slipped back into complacency.

I loved the film and I’m going to show it to as many people as I can – good luck with film and thank you very, very much.

For my review of the film please go here