This film is the result of the old desire of Gerard Depardieu to play Rasputin, this ambiguous historic figure. Once historic archives revealed in Russia, one obtained an access to new details of the life of this notable hermit as well as to a new interpretation of the historic events of that epoch. We wanted to produce a film shot exceptionally in Russia adapted from a well-balanced script and without making any accent on the personages or on the history. Thanks to the cast talents and brilliant work of the director Josée Dayan, we produced a television film which was very warmly welcomed by the public and which later inspired a fiction film based on the same story.