The Muskovite

Preston David Bailey's short film The Muskovite is a darkly comic descent into paranoia, propaganda, and the fractures of modern America. A laid-off truck driver, drowning in right-wing radio, starts seeing Soviet threats around every corner. Is he trapped in a nightmare of his own making? The victim of relentless media influence? Or is something more sinister at play?

Inspired by the shifting political landscape of Trump-era America, The Muskovite blends satire with the dreamlike unease of Soviet cinema, paying homage to classics like Stalker and Solaris. With its cryptic title and a runtime marking the day Trump was elected, the film blurs the line between reality and delusion — inviting you to decide what’s real and what’s illusion.

The Rise of The Muskovite

In The Muskovite, the past collides with the present in a surreal tale of modern American discontent. Against a backdrop of economic turmoil and political strife, a laid-off truck driver spirals into paranoia, his reality warped by the relentless hum of right-wing radio. As voices on the airwaves warn of a nation slipping into Soviet-style control, his fears take on a comedic yet unsettling edge. The Muskovite dissects the tension between conspiracy and collective anxiety, challenging viewers to question the line between perception and reality — and the true power of ideology to shape our world.

The Muskovite is about a lot of things. But when I produced this film Russia in 2018, I had no idea how relevant it would be today.

I had just moved to Moscow and started teaching writing at a small private school when Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency. Donald Trump's friendliness towards Vladimir Putin had already become noticeable during his 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump frequently praised Putin's leadership style and suggested that he would have a good relationship with the Russian president.

In December 2016, the CIA reportedly concluded that Russia influenced the 2016 US presidential election – an issue that gained further attention the following month when a declassified report by the US intelligence community concluded that Putin had ordered an “influence campaign” to affect the election outcome in Trump’s favor.

Also in January 2017, the "pee tape" allegation entered the public conversation, which contributed to a broader discussion of Trump's ties to Russia. And in May, Trump met with Russian officials in the Oval Office of the White House, a meeting that was closed to the US press.

Seeing a Republican president with a friendly stance toward Russia and particularly Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer, stuck me as an ironic cultural shift in conservative American politics. These thoughts generated the ideas that would eventually become The Muskovite.

In a media environment rife with conspiracy theories, I started to think about a humorous story of a typical American blue-collar worker concerned about the political direction of the country as he perceived it through talk radio. Since healthcare, economics, and employment are serious and polarizing issues in the US, I chose to have the protagonist out of work and struggling with health problems.

Since the late 1980s, right-wing radio has often critiqued left-leaning political figures or policies as being too aligned with socialist or communist principles. This includes opposition to socialized medicine and welfare programs that benefit the working poor. Even after the end of the Cold War, right-wing radio continued to emphasize suspicion and mistrust of Russia, carrying over the fear of communist influence felt during Soviet era. But with Trump in office, those sentiments, at least about Russia, seemed to be gone overnight, but the association between liberalism and communism remained.

I thought it would be interesting to imagine such a character struggling with his circumstances but then finds himself more and more in the environment described on the radio. After that, I leave it to the viewer to decide if he’s dreaming of an American dystopia, is mentally deranged, or is a Russian asset created to infiltrate the MAGA world.

With such ambiguity, The Muskovite appropriately includes references to the Soviet-era films Stalker and Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia’s greatest director, and includes an ending inspired by the Soviet thriller The Needle, starring rock legend Viktor Tsoi.

The length – 11 minutes and 8.16 seconds, refers to November 8, 2016, the day Donald Trump was elected for his first term. “Muskovite” is a play on the term “Muscovite,” which means someone from Moscow. People from Muskogee, Oklahoma, are not called “Muskovites.”

The “Musk” in “Muskovite” also adds some unintentional irony.

I hope you enjoy it.

Preston David Bailey

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