Peter Zhmutski

• Comment: Many of the sources do not mention Zhmutski so should not be used. S0091 (talk) 17:25, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

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Peter Zhmutski
Peter Zhmutski portrait 2018.jpg Peter Zhmutski portrait 2018.jpg Zhmutski in 2018
Native name	Пётр Жмутский
Born	c. 1980 Almaty, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union
Other names	Petr Zhmutsky
🎓 Alma mater	Pittsburg State University University of Oklahoma
💼 Occupation	Film producer, director, actor

Peter Zhmutski (also spelled Petr Zhmutsky; ; born c. 1980) is an American film producer, director and actor from Kazakhstan who lives in Norman, Oklahoma. He made his first feature film, the independent crime drama Forever Brothers (2003), as its writer, director and lead actor. He was later one of the producers of the science fiction film Higher Mission (2015), released in the United States as Ratpocalypse, and of the Kazakh crime thriller Diamond Cartel (2017). He founded Watch The Word, a company that is building an online Bible video platform.

Early life and education

Zhmutski was born in Almaty and grew up there. He studied music from an early age and as a child took part in theatre productions and children's television programs. In 1996 he came to an audition for Fara (1999), a drama by the director Abay Karpykov. A 2020 profile in the Kazakh magazine Akyl-kenes says that Karpykov heard him play a piano piece he had written for the film and brought him into the production. Watching Karpykov at work, the magazine wrote, convinced him to become a filmmaker.

He moved to the United States in 1998 as an exchange student with Youth For Understanding, through a program funded under the FREEDOM Support Act. He studied film and video production in Kansas and received a bachelor's degree in broadcasting from Pittsburg State University. He later earned a master's degree in professional writing at the University of Oklahoma.

Career

Early work and Forever Brothers

In 2002, while living in Pittsburg, Kansas, Zhmutski opened his own production company. At first he shot music videos, commercials and public service announcements.

His first feature film, Forever Brothers, was made by his company, PZ Production. Zhmutski wrote, directed and produced it and played one of the two leads. He also wrote the music, edited the film and distributed it himself, according to Akyl-kenes. The film is about two Italian friends, Vittorio and Alessandro, who move to the United States and start working for men who say they belong to the "Russian mafia". Much of the story is told through flashbacks to their childhood. Valerio Bevilacqua, Lev Goncharov and Yaroslav Doroshenko were also in the cast. In May 2003 Lenta.ru reported that the film was being edited and should be finished that June.

After Forever Brothers he made several short films, acted, and taught film at the University of Oklahoma. One of his acting roles was Dr. Stravinsky in the horror comedy Dahmer vs. Gacy (2010).

Producer

Zhmutski produced Higher Mission (2015) together with Gray Frederickson and Vladimir Uglichin, who also wrote and directed the film. It was a joint American and Russian production, shot in 3D in Oklahoma even though the story takes place in Moscow. Casper Van Dien plays a United States senator who warns corrupt Russian officials that they will turn into rats. Catherine Oxenberg and Victoria Summer are also in the cast. In the United States the film came out in 2017 as Ratpocalypse.

He was also one of the producers of Diamond Cartel, a crime thriller directed by Salamat Mukhammed-Ali with Armand Assante in the lead. The film was Peter O'Toole's last screen appearance. Before it opened in Los Angeles and New York on March 24, 2017, The Astana Times named Zhmutski and Gamal Diab as the American producers backing its North American release. Reviews were negative. Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times called the film a "disjointed mess" and faulted its English dubbing.

Marvin's Shining Star

In January 2020 Zhmutski directed Marvin's Shining Star, also known as Marvin's Gift. It is a filmed stage play based on a 2014 children's book by John Otto, a veterinarian from Norman, and his son Payton. The book tells the true story of a man who was once in prison and of the program there that trained service dogs. Zhmutski wrote the script together with his daughter. The play was recorded at the Nancy O'Brian Performing Arts Center at Norman North High School, and Otto planned to send the recording to Oklahoma schools to help children whose parents are in prison. Gray Frederickson and the theatre producer Max Weitzenhoffer also worked on the project.

Ghost Town

Zhmutski is one of the people behind Ghost Town (), a planned science fiction film from Kazakhstan and the United States. Its story grows out of the tornadoes that hit Oklahoma in May 1999. In 2019 Salamat Mukhammed-Ali told the Kazakh business newspaper Kursiv that he had met Zhmutski in Moscow in 2012 and asked him to show the script to Gray Frederickson, who then joined the project as a producer. The budget was put at $11.5 million, and the producers hoped to raise part of it by selling a cryptocurrency token. In February 2020 they opened an online casting call in Kazakhstan for the lead roles. Mukhammed-Ali and Zhmutski were named to direct the film together, and the release was planned for 2022. Later that year Akyl-kenes reported that casting had started again after delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the film was meant to be the pilot for a television series.

Watch The Word

Zhmutski is the founder and chief executive of Watch The Word, a company in Norman that is developing a streaming platform for the King James Version of the Bible, with video for each chapter, audio narration and a reading mode.

Personal life

Zhmutski lives in Norman, Oklahoma. In a 2017 interview he said that film work came and went, so over the years he also ran other businesses, among them a restaurant, two shops, a construction company and a dance school.

Filmography

Year	Title	Credited as	Notes
2003	Forever Brothers	Director, writer, producer, actor
2010	Dahmer vs. Gacy	Actor	Role: Dr. Stravinsky
2015	Higher Mission	Producer	Released in the U.S. in 2017 as Ratpocalypse
2017	Diamond Cartel	Producer
2020	Marvin's Shining Star	Director, writer	Filmed stage play

External links

• Peter Zhmutski on IMDb
• Official website

This article "Peter Zhmutski" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Peter Zhmutski. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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