The twisty tale of the Ukrainian operative wrapped up in a Trump scandal is an 'insane, very gonzo story' with broad appeal, Maddow tells Variety

Rachel Maddow‘s Surprise Inside production banner will debut its first feature documentary “From Russia With Lev” at the “MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024” conference set for Sept. 7 in Brooklyn.

MSNBC Films plans to give “From Russia With Lev” a limited release in arthouse theaters and broadcast the doc on MSNBC in late September.

Directed by Billy Corben, “From Russia With Lev,” chronicles the twisty tale of Ukrainian-born operative Lev Parnas, whose association with former President Donald Trump and attorney Rudolph Giuliani took him on a strange journey that ended in a stealth campaign to dig up dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden. Parnas played a role in Trump’s first impeachment trial, which ended in February 2020 with his acquittal on a party-line Senate vote.

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Maddow signed on to executive produce “From Russia With Lev” in January, four years after she interviewed a remorseful Parnas on the eve of the impeachment proceedings in January 2020. That interview drew one of the largest audiences in the 15-year history of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

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Corben is an accomplished documentarian and a partner in the Miami-based Rakontur production venture with producer Alfred Spellman.

“When I learned that Billy and Alfred Spellman were working with Lev and had done a new exclusive interview with him around which they were basing the much deeper story of what really happened to this guy, I was blindsided,” Maddow tells Variety. “I didn’t know they had been working on it because they kept it very quiet. But once I found out about it, I basically begged to be part of it.”

The 92-minute film draws on more than 30 hours of new interview footage with Parnas and his close network, as well as a never-before-seen personal archive of photos, videos, documents and secret recordings.

“The really unique thing that makes the doc surprising and really substantive in terms of advancing the story is that Lev is a guy who saves everything,” Maddow says. “So, he brings to bear all of these visual elements, secret recordings, text messages, photos and receipts that nobody’s ever seen before. As you are watching it, you can’t believe that this documentation exists of something that involves the former President of the United States.”

Maddow co-founded Surprise Inside in 2022 with former MSNBC president Phil Griffin. “From Russia with Lev,” is the company’s first film project. While the documentary is political in nature, Maddow believes that “From Russia With Lev” will appeal to a wide audience.

“This is definitely not an educational film,” Maddow says. “It’s not an extended news item by any means. It’s this insane, very gonzo story about a guy who’s very interesting and funny. It’s not a Trump documentary necessarily. I think that it is compelling to anybody no matter what you think about anybody in politics or whether you think about politics at all. But for anybody who does have an interest in this political moment this is the first snapshot, from somebody who was there, about how things actually work inside the government when it is taken over by crooks.”

Corben echoes Maddow’s point about the story being a wild ride with a colorful character at the center. “Lev Parnas’ story is like Tom Clancy if Jack Ryan was played by Jackie Mason,” Corben says.

Maddow says her Surprise Inside venture with Griffin aims to tackle a wide range of documentary fare beyond stories with political themes.

“I’m not working on docs because I need to scratch the news itch,” Maddow says. “I’m doing that elsewhere. This is really not about persuading people to do a specific thing in terms of how they vote or what they do in politics. It really is just about finding the right platform to tell the right kind of story.”

Maddow explains she aims to “entertain” with Surprise Inside fare, but will hold all films to journalistic standards.

“I’m an NBC News Group employee and I abide by NBC News Group rules in all different forms of the work that I do,” she says. “That’s true for the podcasts that I’ve done, and everything I do on linear television and that’s true for the docs I do as well.”

“From Russia With Lev” will debut at “MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024” an immersive day-long event, similar to BravoCon, to be held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The gathering is designed for die-hard fans of the liberal-leaning cable news network. Maddow and more than a dozen other top MSNBC hosts and anchors will make appearances.

“From Russia With Lev” hails from MSNBC Films, Rakontur, Universal Television Alternative Studio and Surprise Inside. Executive producers are Maddow, Rashida Jones, Rebecca Kutler and Amanda Spain.

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