Французский фильм про Курск

7 января 2005 года в 22:30 по Парижскому времени в эфире второго общенационального канала во Франции транслировали 4х летнее журналистское расследование об обстоятельствах гибели Курска.

Основные выводы создателей фильма, даже если они ошибочны, заслуживают внимания:

1.     Одна из двух американских подводных лодок столкнулась с Курском, чтобы предотвратить показательные испытания сверхбыстрой торпеды «Шквал» перед продажей их партии китайцам. (Данная торпеда движется со скоростью до 500 км/ч. в воде и дает абсолютное превосходство при ведении подводного боя, соответственно, меняет расстановку сил в ядерном балансе, т. к. большинство межконтинентальных ракет сейчас базируется на подводных лодках). Подвергнувшись такой агрессии(?) Курск начал открывать шахты для ответного удара, но вторая американская лодка торпедировала его, лишив возможности сопротивляться. В результате китайцы не получили торпеды, а мы потеряли 118 моряков и одну из новейших лодок, которую, по словам одного из проинтервьюированных офицеров, американцы называли «убийца авианосцев».

2.     Мир был на пороге ядерной войны.

3.     Моряков не спасали, чтобы не оставлять свидетелей.

4.     Очень интересный фильм. Будем ждать выхода в российский прокат...

5.     В связи с этим возникает ряд вопросов: не этот ли, в том числе, инцидент имел ввиду президент, когда недавно сделал неожиданное заявление о большом количестве международных врагов у России. Не тайными ли договоренностями связана Америка, закрывающая глаза на установление авторитарного строя в России и не поэтому ли в последние годы бюджеты Ф.С.Б. и ВПК увеличились в несколько раз...

Отрывки фильма на французском

 

Смотреть отрывок 1

 

Смотреть отрывок 2

 

Интервью с Jean-Michel Carré – создателем фильма про гибель подводной лодки «Курск»: «Koursk» : un sous-marin n eaux troubles» (Читать здесь)

 

Интервью с создателями фильма про Курск The ultimate price of state secrets. A stunning European film premier marks the beginning of 2005. Interview with film Director. Anna Ossipova   (читать здесь)

 

«КУРСК» потопила чужая субмарина (ОБЗОР ПРЕССЫ)

 

Материалы и фотографии на английском

Материалы и фотографии на английском-2

Материалы на французском

 

The Sinking Of The Russian Sub Kursk!

 

Американский форум

 

 

 

 

The ultimate price of state secrets A stunning European film premier marks the beginning of 2005. (01/12/2005 13:48)

 

PRAVDA.Ru's exclusive interview with the filmmaker. 

Jean-Michel Carre's latest documentary entitled "Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters" proved to be a huge success after its premier on French television on January 6th 2005. The film presents an alternative account of the Kursk tragedy while attempting to unveil a curtain of secrecy.  

Pravda.Ru is honored to be the first newspaper to ever come up with the version which has become the basis for the film. The article "World War III Could Brake Out on Sunday" first appeared on the Pravda.Ru's website on August 22nd, 2000. In it, it was baldly stated that the collision of Russian and American submarines could have resulted in the worst political crisis ever to occur between the two countries. "On Sunday 12th August an incident occurred in the Barents Sea which almost led to the start of a third world war. For several days the world hung on a thread and a political faux-pa could have led to an exchange of nuclear strikes," read the article. It is also quite noteworthy to mention that back then hardly anyone paid any attention to the publication. However, as the film demonstrates, the topic remains relevant nowadays.

Jill Emery, who worked closely with the film director, has agreed to answer Pravda.Ru's questions pertaining to the process of making the documentary. 

PRAVDA.Ru: How did you find the article? Is it true that you decided to make the film after you read our article?
 
Jill Emery: We found out about this article when it first came out on the Pravda website through our Russian scientific specialist here in France who checked the web every day for us to see if there was anything interesting. He immediately made a copy of it  (thankfully) because when we checked the site again it had disappeared...Jean Michel was in Russia at the time and it really made him open his eyes and ears and collect other sources of information in different papers which also disappeared rather quickly.  

Numerous articles from various other Russian newspapers like "Versiya" are quoted in the film.

PRAVDA.Ru: What is the purpose of the film?

Jill Emery: The purpose of the film was to make people aware of the fact that everything is not always what we are shown at face value, that authorities and the press don"t always tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth even if they are wearing military outfits or are prime ministers etc. That we live in a complex world where the reason of state is often predominant and more important than individual lives. This is the same in every country in the world. When the Americans lied about the weapons of mass destruction, about Saddam Hussein being responsible for 11/9, it was the epiphany of diplomatic lies, there was Vietnam, the Cuban Crisis, so many other moments in history we know about and there are hundreds more hidden secrets we know nothing about.

The film surprisingly shows  that Vladimir Putin, far from being what people initially thought is an intelligent statesman who wants to develop his nation on an international basis even if that means sacrifices. Democracy should mean being so sure that your choices are the best ones for the nation that you don"t lie to the people as George W Bush has...unfortunately statesmen find the risk of losing power too great.

PRAVDA.Ru: Do you plan to showcase the film in Russia?

Jill Emery: Yes we would very much like the Russians to see the film, however.we don"t know what the result would be like. How will the families react? How will the authorities react.

PRAVDA.Ru: What difficulties did you run into while working on the documentary?

Jill Emery: There were no real difficulties in making the film. It just took 4 years for the different elements leading to our conclusions and theory to trickle out. Journalists don"t take all the time we did. They can"t. A lot was shot in Russia as well as in the UK, the US and Norway. The only difficulty was that the Russian producer we initially worked with refused to introduce us to anyone who had a different point of view from the official one and even people like Popov demanded a lot of money to be interviewed. Our attitude was that we didn't want to pay anyone for two reasons, the first being that information that is bought cannot necessarily be trusted, this was the main reason. Apart from that we didn't have the money to pay people. We wanted to interview Vladimir Putin, but this was refused. GorbatchКv refused to be interviewed too. However, although people tried to prevent us from doing so we managed to meet Nikitin and Pasko.

We in fact show in it how Vladimir Putin himself proved his statesman ship through the catastrophe, in spite of popular belief...albeit accepting to sacrifice the possible lives of those of the crew who had not been killed by the explosion. We think that other statesman in other countries would have done the same. They have so in the past as our British specialists told us. Submarine warfare and cold war-fare has a number of secrets that the general public has never been informed of. It so happens that in the Kursk catastrophe everything was out in the open. No one has ever known exactly what happened on  the French submarine  la Minerve which sank off the coast of France in 1969, or the Euridice 8 in 1970 with 59 killed and hundreds of other unsolved tragedies.  Nobody knows that British submariners who had survived a similar catastrophe had been interned once rescued so that people would not find out the truth about the incident.

Our film could have concerned any country in the world. Power and its secrets are universal.

Interview conducted by Anna Ossipova

(с) http://pravda.ru  and Anna Ossipova  http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/362/14809_.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

Интервью с Jean-Michel Carré – создателем фильма про гибель подводной лодки «Курск»: «Koursk» : un sous-marin n eaux troubles»

 

Docu. Jean-Michel Carré a enquêté pendant quatre ans sur le naufrage du sous-marin russe en 2000. Et il désigne un responsable: la marine américaine.
«Koursk», la thèse officielle torpillée

Par Jacques AMALRIC

vendredi 07 janvier 2005 (Liberation - 06:00)

France 2, 22 h 30. «"Koursk" : un sous-marin
en eaux troubles», documentaire de Jean-Michel Carré,
dans le cadre du magazine «Contre-courant».

ui a tué le Koursk, le plus moderne des sous-marins nucléaires russes ? Pendant quatre ans, Jean-Michel Carré a cherché l'explication de ce drame qui, le 12 août 2000, a coûté la vie aux cent dix-huit membres de l'équipage du Koursk. Sa réponse en surprendra plus d'un, mais elle mérite qu'on la retienne car le documentaire exceptionnel diffusé ce soir est le résultat d'un travail d'enquête particulièrement sérieux : pour Jean-Michel Carré, en effet, ce sont les Etats-Unis qui sont responsables du naufrage du Koursk et c'est Vladimir Poutine qui a volontairement laissé mourir les survivants de la catastrophe au nom de la raison d'Etat ; il fallait à tout prix cacher une vérité qui aurait non seulement rendu impossible un rapprochement avec les Etats-Unis mais aussi pu dégénérer en affrontement.

Intimidation. La tragédie du Koursk, on s'en souvient, s'est déroulée lors de manoeuvres navales et aériennes organisées dans la mer de Barents. A des fins patriotiques certes, mais aussi commerciales. Le clou de cette démonstration-vente : la torpille Schkval, un engin de deux tonnes capable d'atteindre les 500 km/h alors que ses rivales occidentales plafonnent à 70 km/h. De quoi mettre sérieusement en péril la suprématie de la flotte américaine. Surtout si la Russie accepte d'en vendre à la Chine, dont plusieurs hauts gradés ont été invités à assister aux manoeuvres de l'été 2000.

L'intérêt des services américains pour la torpille Schkval n'est pas à démontrer ; un homme d'affaires, ancien des services de l'US Navy, Edmond Pope, a même été condamné par un tribunal russe, à la veille des manoeuvres, à vingt ans de prison pour avoir tenté d'en acheter les plans à son inventeur. Pas étonnant donc que deux sous-marins américains, le Memphis et le Toledo, aient été dépêchés, par mesure d'intimidation, dans la mer de Barents. Se serait alors ensuivie une collision involontaire entre le Toledo et le Koursk, suivie de l'envoi d'une torpille du Memphis contre le bâtiment russe pour protéger la fuite du Toledo endommagé. C'est cette torpille qui aurait transformé en catastrophe ce qui n'aurait pu être qu'un accident en faisant exploser le stock de Schkval à bord du Koursk.

La thèse de Jean-Michel Carré s'appuie sur des indices solides : les premières déclarations des responsables de la flotte russe, mettant en cause les Etats-Unis (ils ont été limogés mais bien recasés depuis), un trou dans l'épave du Koursk qui ne peut avoir été provoqué que par l'entrée d'un projectile, la récupération d'une bouée de détresse appartenant à un des sous-marins américains, le refus déterminé des autorités américaines de laisser inspecter le Toledo, le voyage secret effectué à Moscou par le directeur de la CIA trois jours après le naufrage, le refus initial de la part de la Russie de toute aide étrangère pour renflouer un sous-marin qui ne gisait qu'à 108 mètres de profondeur, les mensonges éhontés sur l'état de la mer qui n'aurait pas permis d'agir rapidement, la décision prise par la suite de ne pas remonter le compartiment des torpilles qui fut ensuite détruit au fond de la mer sans avoir été examiné, la censure des messages retrouvés sur certains cadavres de sous-mariniers .

Basses oeuvres. La liste n'est pas exhaustive mais elle suffit dans tous les cas à pulvériser la thèse officielle selon laquelle le Koursk a été victime de l'explosion d'une torpille dont la conception (dangereuse) remonte aux années 50 et plus jamais utilisée depuis. Le semblant d'enquête, il est vrai, avait été confié par Vladimir Poutine à son procureur des basses oeuvres, Vladimir Oustinov, celui-là même qui a été chargé du dépeçage de la compagnie pétrolière Ioukos. Les Occidentaux, à commencer par les Américains et les Britanniques, se sont bien sûr empressés de confirmer cette fiction qui a inauguré un retour de la Russie poutinienne vers l'autoritarisme. Depuis, faut-il le rappeler, ce mouvement régressif n'a cessé de s'amplifier.

 

(с) Liberation 07 janvier 2005   http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=266435

 

For fun, I just translated this. I speak some French. For context, this is an interview between Sud-Ouest and the producer of a documentary. (I'd take the documentary with a grain of salt, too. Another documentary that has been popular in France is about the moon hoax. Conspiracy theories sell well there, regardless of their merits.)

Translation in English

According to the producer Jean-Michel Carre, the "Kursk", the most modern of Russian submersibles, was sunk in August of 2000 by an American submarine.

MYSTERY IN TROUBLED WATERS
[publicity still from the documentary]
[Caption: The "Kursk". 118 sailors perished in the shipwreck of the Russian submarine, torpedoed by the Memphis, according to the documentary broadcast on France 2.]

Three years of inquiry and one staggering hypothesis worthy of a Frederick Forsythe novel has come from the producer Jean-Michel Carre: the "Kursk" was sunk by an American submarine. The day of the drama, in August 2000, the most modern of all Russian submarines was busy performing a demonstration for Chinese dignataries. It was a matter of demonstrating the qualities of the new "Schkval" torpedo, without which there would be nothing to show off.
Two American submarines crossed into the vicinity to signify Washington's opposition to the sale of this weapon to China. Believing it was under attack, the submarine "Memphis" fired a torpedo at the "Kursk", without imagining the consequences for a ship reputed to be unsinkable. Putin and Clinton decided to hush up the matter, because it would have revived the East/West situation. The documentary demonstrates this hypothesis, which will be broadcast tomorrow on France 2.

"Sud-Ouest"
What was the deciding factor for you to pursue this long inquiry?
"Jean-Michel Carre"
I was in Russia putting together a drama about an old soldier of the secret service turned businessman, Edmond Pope, who was arrested when he was attempting to procure the plans for the torpedo "Schkval". Nobody ever tried to resolve the existence of this torpedo with the tragedy of the "Kursk".

When did the hypothesis that you advance take form?
Not less than a year after the beginning of the inquiry. When I succeeded in finding Edmond Pope, he told me about several incredible things: the presence of the Chinese on the day of the accident, the strategic importance of "Schkval", and the evidence that there was a confrontation between Russian & American submarines.

With this incident, did we verge on nuclear war?
No. At the time, Putin wanted to gain a rapprochement with the United States. But if he was secretive about the truth, it was also to avoid the eventuality of tension in Russian public opinion, which remains very anti-American. This is very paradoxical in relationship to the hypothesis which I put forward/broadcast*, but Putin managed the crisis well. He showed himself as a responsible political man in spite of the lies which are behind this affair: the reason the State got in first. Unfortunately, 118 sailors lost there lives there. He could tell the truth now, but I do not believe he wishes to.

What, according to you, is the situation between the United States and Russia?
The Russians are the only ones trying to resist American leadership. We are no longer in a situation of cold peace: the situation between the United States and Russia, notably with respect to China, the mid-East, petroleum, is becomming more and more violent.

Will this film permit the truth to explode about the drama on "Kursk"?
In the screening room, I met with people from OTAN, the secret service, who told me crazy things, some of which concern France. Thanks to the film, we may have the elements to get closer to the truth. But I am no more against the possibility of something proving my hypothesis false.

On France 2, tomorrow Friday, at 22:30.

*there are two meanings to this word, both of which are plausible in the context, and which are not really contradictory, so I put them both in