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What does it really take to pull off the most expensive Winter Olympics in history?
Putin’s Olympic Dream follows the epic project of preparing for Sochi 2014 as it unfolds, capturing those involved at all levels, from entrepreneurs and oligarchs to immigrants, athletes and activists.
In preparation for the Olympics, Sochi has undergone some of the most dramatic and expensive changes of any hosting city. Formerly a nostalgic Soviet holiday resort, filled with beautiful sanatoriums, the ‘Cannes of the Soviet Union’ has been fast tracked to becoming a very modern Russian city.
Of course, for Vladimir Putin the games are much more than a sporting event, they are Russia’s bid to return to the world stage, and a status project of colossal proportions. With no time to lose, financial, economic, political and ecological limits are breached to make it happen, and filmmaker Hans Pool masterfully captures it all as resources and people are stretched to breaking point.