New documentary looks at Litvinenko's life, death

CANNES, France, May 25 (Reuters) A new documentary about Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko tries to put his sensational murder into context, explaining why an individual, with the possible backing of the authorities, would carry it out.

Director Andrei Nekrasov, a friend of former KGB agent Litvinenko, presented his two-hour picture in Cannes, where its last-minute inclusion in the official programme ensures a controversial close to the film festival which ends on Sunday.

While not in competition, it was screened today and Nekrasov gave interviews ahead of a planned news conference on Saturday that will include Litvinenko's widow Marina.

''Rebellion. The Litvinenko Case'' includes an interview with Kremlin critic Litvinenko, in which he refers to his theory that security services staged a series of Moscow apartment bombings in 1999 and blamed them on Chechen rebels as a pretext for war.

Nekrasov also films the ailing Litvinenko in a London hospital shortly before his death from radiation poisoning, including one clip where he suddenly opens his eyes and stares into the camera.

In the documentary, Litvinenko said he feared for his life and accused his former employers of corruption and coercion, while other former security service agents said they were ordered to assassinate dissident tycoon Boris Berezovsky.

In the film President Vladimir Putin is cast as a leader who encouraged an atmosphere of fear and repression in Russia and who would stop at little to strengthen his grip on power.

''What I can contribute to painting the broader picture is to try to understand the motive,'' Nekrasov told Reuters. ''I think the world has always wondered why Russians are the way they are -- unpredictable, brutal, even sometimes to their own people.'' LUGOVOY INTERVIEWED Nekrasov also interviews Andrei Lugovoy, a former Soviet KGB agent Britain says it wants to charge with poisoning Litvinenko, and wonders why someone apparently so normal might poison and murder an enemy on foreign soil.

Nekrasov said, ''We won't understand that unless we look into the background of the culture of Russia's strongman, Russia's cult of loyalty to the master, this vertical power which Putin proudly announces, which in my view is a bad thing for Russia.'' Lugovoy has denied murdering Litvinenko and Russia says its constitution forbids it from extraditing its own citizens.

Interviews with Litvinenko and other former agents who broke ranks to expose alleged crimes alternate with news footage from the 1999 war in Chechnya, including badly wounded young children in hospital and funerals of Chechen rebels and Russian soldiers.

Russian civilians are shown on chat shows suggesting that killing or maiming children in the region was justified because they may grow up to be ''terrorists'' who attack Russia.

Recent history is also compared with purges under Stalin and other forms of Soviet repression.

Nekrasov said he feared for his safety now that the film was about to be released, and regretted that it was unlikely to be seen in Russia for many years.

The film's only moment of levity came when Lugovoy offered Nekrasov a cup of tea. He politely but quickly declined.

REUTERS RN BST2350