The Film
The Puppet and the Power follows five contemporary political puppeteers as they fight to present a dissenting, irreverent voice in a global climate of limited dissent.
The stories include:
- A Syrian political activist discovers the puppet as a tool to express his contempt for the Assad regime and immediately has to flee the country.
- A London-based Iranian production company broadcasts a politically-sensitive puppet satire into Iran every week, despite it being banned.
- A Northern Irish theatre company tackles ‘the political divide and consequences of civil war’ using the puppet as a mirror.
- A Russian puppetry saga of Putin’s hunger for power and its ongoing consequences.
- The decline of France’s freedom of speech, as a 26-year running satirical puppetry television series is severely censored.