Hot Docs

Raw, audacious, and daring, Thieves by Law follows three former kingpins of the Russian mafia inside the world’s most notorious criminal organization. With unprecedented access to these protagonists and incredible archival footage, Alexander Gentelev reveals the underworld’s formation in Stalin’s Gulag in the 1930s, establishing its codes of honour and hierarchical tattoos, and continues through the Soviet collapse to its coldly calculated ascension to legitimate control of Russian society in the 1990s and eventual global expansion. The ‘retired’ leading men are Leonid “Mackintosh” Bilunov from Ukraine, a strategist, businessman, and master of hand-to-hand combat; Alimzhan “Taivanchik” Tokhtahltounov, an Uzbekistani playboy famously accused of bribing a figure skating judge at the 2002 Olympics; and Vitaly “Bondar” Dyemochka, a cold-blooded thief now turned filmmaker. With their tattoos displayed, the men’s blunt, sobering, and at times humourous, reflections convey a chilling record of contemporary Russia and its turbulent dark history. - Karina Rotenstein

Media Coverage

National Post (Capsule Review), Blog TO (Capsule Review), Eye Weekly (4-star Review)