A new English-language Polish film about Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian president is portrayed using AI-powered special effects to superimpose his real face on an actor, will premiere on 10 January.

The biopic, titled Putin, is the work of Polish filmmaker Patryk Vega, who is best known for movies about the criminal underworld.

The director had initially planned to make a film about Russian gangsters but, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he decided to focus on “Russia’s biggest gangster”, Putin, he told newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

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“The audience needed to see the real Putin,” Vega told British newspaper The Telegraph. “They see him every day in the media. Even the best actor with great make-up wouldn’t convincingly portray a figure everyone in the world knows so well.”