We’re making this film for two reasons: it’s a story that’s never been told and it’s a lens with which to look at Ukraine today.
With hundreds of films about Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cold War, how can we say that our approach is unique? Because too often, historians and filmmakers have focused on the crises that dominated those years – the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. But a crisis narrative treats the two men as props, figureheads acting out their ideological roles. If character analyses are done, they are often superficial: Was Kennedy ambushed at Vienna (he wasn’t); Was Khrushchev bluffing over Berlin? (he was) – but they beg the question of what prompted those actions in the first place.
We are starting from a different vantage point: Who were these two characters? What drove them to make the decisions and the blunders they made? What defects within themselves did they need to overcome to finally break from their destructive interactions? Much is made of the two men’s differences – the Prince versus the Peasant – but it was their similarities that turned them from politicians into statesmen.
Jack and Nikita both felt they were living on borrowed time, both felt they had little to lose, both felt like imposters, and both were gamblers. Those traits fueled their meteoric rise to power but failed them after they reached the top. Both showed great physical courage in wartime, a war that made them question their deepest beliefs. And both, for all their ambition, felt a higher calling, a shared moral dimension to their politics and a mutual fear and hatred of war that gave them the courage to transcend the systems that shaped them.
Artistically, this dictates a radically new approach: to let each man tell his own story. Khrushchev’s memoirs, Kennedy’s White House tapes, contemporaneous accounts, and letters – together with AI’s voice-cloning ability and high-quality realistic animation – allow us to be flies on the wall, witnesses not just to historic turning points, but to the little-known, personal moments of humor and pathos that change history into story.
Khrushchev and Kennedy left a legacy of peace, the first nuclear test ban treaty. But Vladmir Putin intends to pull out of the last remaining Cold War nuclear agreement, shredding 60 years of diplomacy. Like Khrushchev, Putin is playing from a weak hand, forced to rely on bullying, bluster, and nuclear blackmail. His threats, his policy of global destabilization and his sense of victimization by the West all echo Khrushchev’s insecurities. But unlike Putin, Khrushchev – who was born just miles from the Donbas, lost his childhood there, and spent years in Kiev as Stalin’s viceroy – changed his attitude toward Ukraine, the result of a growing sense of kinship.
For the last twenty years, the West has been wrestling with the consequences and shame of appeasement, a specter that haunted Kennedy throughout his life. History may not be repeating itself, but its echoes are too strong to ignore.
– Michael Chandler
Archivist
Helene Van Rossum is the Archivist for “Jack and Nikita.” Van Rossum studied modern history at the University of Amsterdam and archival studies at University College, London, before moving to the United States. Van Rossum has worked as an archivist for most of her professional career, including at the Mudd Library, Princeton University, and Special Collections and University Archives at Rutgers University. She has a deep passion for archival history, the patience to sift through vast quantities of media, and a keen eye to identify what is essential and what is not.
Van Rossum has written several picture books and recently collaborated on a trivia book about Princeton University with the Princeton University Archivist. In addition, she provides instructions and patterns to act out stories from the past with shadow or silhouette puppets on her website, Past Times History
Producer
Sheila Canavan is a producer for Jack and Nikita. Canavan produced and directed the Showtime Broadcast Premier “Compared to What? The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank” and the Independent Lens documentary “Knee Deep,” winner of the prestigious Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary Film. Her film credits include “Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey” and “Yosemite, The Fate of Heaven.”
Sheila is also a nationally known attorney in consumer law and predatory lending fraud, specializing in financial abuse of the elderly. She served a three-year term on the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council, which advises the Board on its responsibilities under the Consumer Credit Protection Act.
Assistant Producer
Max Gittelson works an Assistant Producer at Agora Productions. Max worked as a sound recordist and PA on location in Russia, Germany, Austria, Washington DC, and Massachusetts. Max has also worked in an administrative capacity at Stone Tiger Productions and in sales at Morgan Fabrics.
Director/Writer/Editor
Michael Chandler is the writer, director, and editor of Agora’s new film, Jack and Nikita. He is an Emmy award winning, and Oscar nominated film editor, writer, producer and director of feature and documentary films. His film credits include five Oscar nominations for Amadeus, Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey, The Squires of San Quentin, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers and Freedom on My Mind (Sundance Grand Jury Prize); an Emmy Award for Yosemite: The Fate of Heaven; two American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Awards for Amadeus and the ABC special Can’t It Be Anyone Else? (Christopher Humanitarian Award). His most recent works include Knee Deep (Maysles Brothers Award) and Forgotten Fires (Golden Spire Award) of which Bill Moyers said, “If we wanted a real dialog about race in America, we’d start with this film.”
Executive Producer
Darin Nellis is the co-founder of Agora Productions and Stone Tiger Productions. Nellis produced the critically acclaimed documentary films, JFK: A President Betrayed (Amazon Prime) and The Power of the Powerless (TPOP). Oliver Stone said JFK was “brilliant” and the Hollywood Reporter called it “an excellent example of cinematic scholarship.” Nellis headed up the distribution of TPOP, which aired on ten TV networks in Europe and Asia and was distributed by human rights organizations on three continents. He also spearheaded the development and distribution of an educational curricula for Powerless, now being used by hundreds of universities across the globe. Currently, Nellis serves as the Executive Producer for “Calitopia,” a new surf adventure series and “Jack and Nikita – My Partner My Adversary,” an exciting new genre breaking political thriller.
In addition to his work in film production, Nellis has served as an executive for multiple high-tech companies and served the Peace Corps in Mauritania, West Africa, where he nurtured an appreciation for globalism. Fluent in French, and conversationally fluent in Spanish and Arabic, he received his MBA in International Business from Loyola Marymount University.
