First of all, we want to thank Rome Prisma Film Awards for selecting our film. We are very proud and happy because all members of our team love Italy and because we have been having a long and productive relationship with Rome for a long time. Our director, Boris Volodarsky’s first experience working with the cinema of Italy dates back many years ago when he was briefly working in Moscow with Rodolfo Sonego, an Italian screenwriter well known in the Soviet Union for his comedies. Naturally, Boris also met Alberto Sordi and Ornella Muti who came with Rodolfo as guests at the Moscow Film Festival together with Rodolfo’s wife Allegra. An important visit to Rome was in May 2007 as part of the Alexander Litvinenko investigation when Boris managed to visit Mario Scaramella in a Rome prison asking important questions related to the case.

Unfortunately, the group was not allowed to film this extraordinary interview that Boris later published in his books, the latest is The Murder of Alexander Litvinenko: To Kill a Mocking Bird (London, 2023). One chapter of the book also includes an investigation of the work of the KGB in Italy. In this work, an important contact was a former Italian senator, journalist and politician Paolo Guzzanti and his daughter, actress Sabina Guzzanti. Finally, you might have noticed that in Spy Capital: Vienna there is a small episode that deals with Italy and some political activities in your country directly sponsored by the Kremlin so Rome is a close place to us.

Boris Volodarsky: Besides being a film director, I am also an intelligence historian specializing in the KGB, its predecessors and successors. All professionals know that Vienna has long been known as the capital of the world espionage but, surprisingly, before we did Spy Capital there has never been any film devoted to this unique phenomenon. Working on it we have made two discoveries: first, that Vienna actually became the spy capital 150 years ago when it hosted the 1873 World’s Fair. Second, that it never abandoned this role although some historians claimed that at a certain time, it was Berlin (1920s) and Paris (1930s). And ever Stockholm or Copenhagen in the late 1930s – early 1940s. In the film, we are seeking to show not only the intriguing history of espionage in Vienna but also its present and, logically, its future as the spy capital.

Because we have a director who is also a renowned intelligence historian of the major league, Boris knows all the important people in this field. We have made a list of professionals whom we want to interview and all of them immediately agreed.

It is quite obvious that their taking part in the film with their original and highly professional assessments, confessions and analysis enriched the film to a great degree because the spectators immediately recognize authoritative professionals whose word has a lot of value. It is one of the reasons why such people are in high demand. We are very proud to be able to bring them together in our film project.