Citizen X

Citizen X
Promotional poster
Directed by	Chris Gerolmo
Produced by	Timothy Marx
Screenplay by	Chris Gerolmo
Based on	The Killer Department by Robert Cullen
Starring	Stephen Rea Donald Sutherland Max von Sydow Jeffrey DeMunn Joss Ackland John Wood Ion Caramitru Imelda Staunton
Music by	Randy Edelman
Cinematography	Robert Fraisse
Edited by	William Goldenberg
Release date	25 February 1995 (1995-02-25)
Running time	105 minutes

Citizen X is a made-for-TV film, released in 1995, which covers the investigation of the Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 of the murder of 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990, and the efforts of detectives in the Soviet Union to capture him. The film is based on Robert Cullen's non-fiction book The Killer Department (1993).

A body is discovered on a collective farm during harvesting in 1982. A subsequent search of adjacent woods, authorized by newly installed official, Viktor Burakov, turns up seven more bodies in varying stages of decomposition. The film tells the story of the subsequent eight-year hunt by forensic specialist Burakov for the serial killer responsible for the mutilation and murder of over 50 people, 35 of them children below the age of 18. Burakov is promoted to detective and eventually aided, covertly at first, by Col. Mikhail Fetisov, his commanding officer and the shrewd head of the provincial committee for crime, and, much later, by Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky, a psychiatrist.

As well as taking on the form of a crime thriller, the movie depicts Soviet propaganda and bureaucracy that contributed to the failure of law enforcement agencies to capture the killer, Andrei Chikatilo, for almost a decade. Chikatilo's crimes were not reported publicly for years. Local politicians were fearful such revelations would have a negative impact on the USSR's image, since serial killers were associated with Western moral corruption.

Chikatilo first came under scrutiny early in the search when he was spotted at a station and found holding a satchel bag containing a knife. He was promptly arrested. Unfortunately, he was shielded from investigation and released due to his membership in the Communist Party. Additionally, the Soviet crime labs erroneously reported that his blood type did not match that found at the murders. All this changed under the political reforms of glasnost and Perestroika, and the search for the killer began to make progress.