The feature-length documentary Putin’s Witnesses by Vitaly Mansky deals with the chronology of Putin’s coming to power and his spiraling rise. Initially Putin’s supporter, Mansky, for years, records hours and hours of documentary archival material that leads us behind the scenes of some of the most important events in recent history of Russia. As former editor-in-chief of the documentary program on national television, Mansky has access to material that was filmed for the needs of several high-ranking politicians including Vladimir Putin. By combining them with his own footage from that time, Mansky, through conversations with Putin’s sympathizers and contemporaries, creates a portrait of one of the most controversial politicians of today aware that near the authorities “it’s naive to think it’s possible to be just a witness.”