Rodion Chepel’s documentary “Durov” that premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival over the weekend attempted to lift the veil of secret surrounding among one of the most talked-about IT business owners– Pavel Durov.
Durov, 36, has been called by the media as “Russian Mark Zuckerberg” for starting the social networking platform VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, and later Telegram, the encrypted messaging application.
The movie, which suggest of a egotistic yet fantastic entrepreneur, is interesting material for anyone curious about how social networks and messaging systems have actually altered the means individuals connect as well as the visionary that made it take place.
Focus on personal privacy
If the audience hopes to obtain a glimpse of an elusive tech magnate, they will be disappointed: Durov never ever shows up in the film.
Director Rodion Chepel informed The Moscow Times that Durov was included in the process of making the documentary about his life, responded to all the questions sent out to him and also saw the film post-production.
” Durov recognizes just how to influence and exactly how to maintain control of every little thing that worries him,” Chepel said.
In the absence of the major character, the film features several of Durov’s close partners, from his previous service partners at VKontakte to his present workers in Telegram. The most intimate as well as revealing minutes were shared by Durov’s high college instructor, Grigory Mednikov.
Also in senior high school Durov maintained thorough control over his public image: He was the just one in his finishing class that rejected to have his image taken for the yearbook. On the night of college graduation, Durov vowed he would end up being “an Internet symbol,” and he appears to have fulfilled his prediction.
The documentary film follows Durov’s life beginning with the very first pupil online forum he created for the students of the philology division at the St. Petersburg State University and also the very early success of VKontakte, in addition to the wealth and popularity it brought him.
The movie likewise includes a few of his early stunts, like launching paper airplanes made of money from the top of his office building. This later came to be the icon of Telegram, an encrypted messaging application with a concentrate on user personal privacy.
The film invests quite a bit of time recounting the occasions of 2011-2015 when Durov encountered problems with the Russian authorities by declining to shut down the VK account of Russian resistance leader Alexei Navalny and the subsequent purchase of VK shares by among Putin’s close affiliates– Alisher Usmanov.
Durov was fired as CEO of VK after one more standoff with the Russian federal government in 2014. Throughout the begin of the dispute with Ukraine and also annexation of Crimea, he again declined to break down details on Ukraine’s resistance leaders.
Telegram was initially produced as a side project with his sibling Nikolai so that Russian safety services could not eavesdrop on their conversations. That would certainly become the marketing factor of the app.
When his encrypted messaging app was later made use of by ISIS to intend terrorist strikes in Europe and also the Middle East in 2016, Durov once more defended his insistence on individual personal privacy when Western federal governments advised him to share information.
Durov’s one failure was a cryptocurrency called TON he attempted to introduce in 2019-2020 when the project was halted by the U.S. Securities as well as Exchange Commission and also government courts.
One thing continues to be regular– Durov’s dedication to privacy in his messaging app as well as his individual life. Because his last televised interview in 2017, Durov has actually been not available to journalists worldwide.
” Every word he claims might have huge consequences,” Chepel told The Moscow Times.
The movie supervisor claimed he had to ask Durov’s permission to talk about their encounters.
The movie manufacturer confessed that at times he himself had a hard time to have his very own fascination with Durov during the shooting procedure.
” There might be the perception that we are some sort of Pavel Durov fan club … yet the man that created our pupil online forum is currently raising a billion bucks on his word of honor alone with no documentation,” Chepel told The Moscow Times.
The movie can be streamed with English captions on Russian movie-streaming platform KION.