The Plowshare Paradox
When the arms race suddenly ended...
The Plowshare Paradox is the true story of two men whose lives are turned upside down at the end of the Cold War. Decorated hero Vladimir Sadovnikov spent his life proudly building nuclear weapons to defend his beloved country, his Party, his workers and his family. He disintegrates, both physically and emotionally, as the world he thought he knew and the system he believed in dissolve around him.
George Clarkey, a young American wannabe intelligence officer, joins the US treaty inspection team living at the gate of Vladimir’s factory. He is on track to become a professional spy when he falls in love with one of the Russians working on the treaty. George has to choose between pursuing his career or following his heart. The KGB — convinced he really is a spy — does its best to take advantage of their relationship.
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Justin LifflanderWriterHow Not to Become a Spy: A memoir of love at the end of the Cold War
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Project Type:Screenplay
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Number of Pages:150
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Country of Origin:Russian Federation
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Language:English
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First-time Screenwriter:Yes
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Student Project:No
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Flixx Fest, Jefferson, CAFlixx Fest, Jefferson, CA
September 22, 2018
Finalist, Best Screenplay
Justin Lifflander has lived in Russia for more than thirty years.
After graduating from Cornell University in 1987, he was employed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as a driver-mechanic. In February 1989, he moved to Votkinsk in the Soviet Republic of Udmurtia, in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. There he worked as an inspector at the monitoring facility set up at a missile production plant under the terms of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) — the U.S.-U.S.S.R. disarmament agreement that eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.
Under the terms of the treaty, the American inspectors were accompanied by Soviet escorts when they conducted inspections and whenever they left their facility at the missile factory. Lifflander married one of the Soviet escorts. Theirs was the first of six marriages among the inspectors and escorts.
In the fall of 2014 he published a memoir of this adventure, titled “How Not to Become a Spy.” In 2015 the Russian language edition was published by Vesmir Publishing.
After Votkinsk, Lifflander worked as an executive at Hewlett-Packard Russia for nearly twenty years. He also created, ran and sold two technology start-ups. He was an editor at The Moscow Times — Russia’s leading English language newspaper — from 2010 to 2014, where he authored several articles about Russian-American relations, the tragi-comedy of life in Russia and cigars. He then worked as vice-president of a Russian media conglomerate, responsible for communications and business development.
He holds American and Russian citizenship and teaches American history and literature at a high-school in Moscow, where he resides with his wife and mother-in-law.