2023 Cond Nast. You can try, Jon Stewart's Political Comedy 'Irresistible' Is A Condescending Attempt To Skewer Liberal Condescension, Olivier Assayas' Historical Thriller 'Wasp Network' Tells The True Story Of 1990s Cuban Espionage, Spike Lee's Vietnam Epic 'Da 5 Bloods' Uncovers Buried Bombs, Both Personal and Political. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Panetta recalled talking with her mother, who had sent her bad information about Covid-19. El caso central de WELCOME TO CHECHNYA no es el de Anya sino el de Maxim, cuya complicada historia -que incluye a su pareja, familia y varias idas y vueltas- se ir contando a travs del film e incluye muchos elementos dramticos ms. Bogdan Left, Grisha Right in "Welcome to Chechnya". That tell is important, Laney said. Plans start at $9.99/month. The three films Ive made are about a kind of a radical kind of queer activism, that I think really leads the world in bringing a kind of a love-based activism to these really awful issues and making a difference, France said. Even Facebook, not known for its strict policing of content, pledged to ban deepfakes in January. 'They Told Me I Wasn't A Human Being': Gay Men Speak Of Brutal Treatment In Chechnya, Activists Say 40 Detained And 2 Dead In Gay Purge In Chechnya. Director David Frances 2012 How to Survive a Plague was to my mind one of the decades finest documentaries. So I was following the footsteps of my heroes. His companions were two guides hed hired. [11], The film received universal critical acclaim, holding an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. And making people aware of whats happening with a film like Welcome to Chechnya is the first step. Appalling. In 2017, the Russian republic of Chechnya began what some news outlets have dubbed the gay purge, rounding up and torturing LGBTQ+ citizens at secret black sites. She was being blackmailed by an uncle who discovered she is a lesbian . Without that outrage, it will keep going. LDS Church wants to light up a temple in a place that prides itself on dark skies, For husband-and-wife team, this new restaurant is the culmination of a decadeslong dream. and Anya, a young queer woman from Grozny, who wants to flee her powerful Chechen family. And in 70 countries across the globe where its still illegal to be gay. It was Grishas particular situation that brought the film's action into direct contact with officialdom. Grade: B+ "Welcome to Chechnya" premiered at the Sundance. Welcome To Chechnya (2020): Official Trailer | HBO. During a drug raid, police found suggestive texts and photos on a man's cell phone that led them to believe he identified as gay. So when I met him, he was an open, generous figure who allowed me to share his journey with him in the most profound way., In order to hide the identities of the residents in the safe house, France used technology to replace their faces with those of 22 LGBTQ activists in New York City. A checkpoint is en route. Another agonising airport moment came when Grisha flew to lasting safety abroad, accompanied not only by his boyfriend but by his family as well: the threats of the Chechen power structures extended so far in Russia that all concerned were in peril, and so had to be moved. At the airport, photography is not allowed, though authorities tolerate selfies. Playing the aunties are cameraperson Alexandra Ivanova and a female activist. The Network helps him move to an undisclosed location in Europe with his boyfriend of 10 years. This fear is not abstract. While Lapunovs identity is kept secret this way through most of the film, his real face is shown when he goes to court to sue the Russian government for failing to protect him from what his lawyers argue was unlawful arrest, detention, torture and discrimination. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize, David Isteev, Olga Baranova, Maxim Lapunov, Panorama Publikumspreis (audience award) for Best Documentary, Ryan Laney, Eugen Brunig, Maxwell Anderson, Johnny Han and Piers Dennis, David France, Alice Henty, Askold Kurov and Joy A Tomchin, Best Broadcast Network or Cable Docuseries, Documentary Television Movie, or Non-Fiction Series, Alice Henty, David France, Joy A. Tomchin, Askold Kurov and Igor Myakotin, The Most Valuable Documentary of the Year, This page was last edited on 9 January 2023, at 01:52. We were stopped, and because I was an American in this incredibly hermetic part of the world, they pulled me out of the car and brought me in for questioning., When interrogated, France recited his well-rehearsed alibi: I was an insane rich guy who was a rabid fan of the Egyptian football team that had just traveled through Chechnya. "People in Chechnya who are suspected of being lesbian, gay or bisexual, are facing a 'new wave of persecution' following a spate of killings involving torture, and other rights abuses," a group. 'Country Queers' shares the 'joy' and 'pain' of rural LGBTQ life, NYC's Queer Liberation March draws thousands, clashes with NYPD, Two New Yorkers vie to be first gay Black men in Congress. And it restores to them their humanity in a way that would not have been possible under other circumstances., Still, why should we trust a documentary that uses deepfakes? We witnessed the dramatic press conference, organised by Russias Committee against Torture, at which that happened, which was also the moment that the film let slip the visual technique that had allowed the director to mask the faces of his subjects (the pioneering effect essentially reverses the image-manipulating possibilities of DeepFake). Documentary Special Jury Award for Editing, U.S. Isteev was the aptly titled crisis intervention coordinator for Russias largest gay rights group, The Russian LGBT Network, Baranova the director of the Moscow-based Community Center for LGBTI+ Initiatives. Their identities are protected via a new form of digital masking, which similar to deepfake technology overlays the faces of others while preserving the camera subjects original expressions. Within two weeks of David France reading an article in The New Yorker about the persecution of LGBTQ people in Chechnya, he was on a plane headed to Moscow. The piece will go live on July 20 at moondisaster.org. We get to see victims in lighter moments although those simply underscore the fact that these otherwise average, bright, funny people are living with the threat of torture and death hanging over them. The story in Chechnya is unfortunately still ongoing. She has never been at home alone before but must wait indoors, as the activists try to arrange for any country to take her in. Frances movie, which premieres on HBO Tuesday, is largely focused on a Moscow-based group of activists attempting to help these survivors flee the country. Welcome to Chechnya is largely procedural, with long scenes detailing the steps it takes to covertly travel from one territory to another, toward safety or something like it. But things got much worse in early 2017, when the leader of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, a strongman with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, began a violent purge of anyone suspected of being gay or transgender. For Anyas rescue operation, the Sony stayed home. In Russia, this equipment needs certain certifications and permissions. The Trump Family Behaves Exactly How Youd Expect in Documentary Subpoenaed by Jan. 6 Committee. Grisha was allowed out of prison because, apparently, hes from Siberia but the Chechen authorities later decided theyd made a mistake by letting a witness get away. Before Anya even set foot in the restaurant, Ivanova got a warning scrawled on a napkin. Fortunately, the brave Grisha has the support of his immediate family, who decide to move with him; as his mother notes in one poignant scene, her loyalty is to her family not to an oppressive government. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. 1999 - Chechen fighters clash with Russian troops on the Chechnya-Dagestan border; Chechen rebels carry out armed incursions into Dagestan in a bid to create an Islamic state..Moscow blames for . It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2020 and was released on June 30, 2020, by HBO Films. Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday! He is confronted over the allegation that. Welcome to Chechnya is a blisteringly painful watch, one that imparts new meaning on the practice of bearing witness. [1] The film centers on the anti-gay purges in Chechnya of the late 2010s, filming LGBT Chechen refugees using hidden cameras as they made their way out of Russia through a network of safehouses aided by activists. All rights reserved. Illia Ponomarenko, a defense reporter for The Kyiv Independent, tweeted: "Magomed Tushayev, one of . And Im still on it. Their storylines are framed by the narrative . Advocacy meets suspense in "Welcome to Chechnya," a chilling examination of both the brutality that the Chechen LGBT community is forced to face on a daily basis and the difficulty of leaving. It was by far the most emotional journey Ive ever been on, said France in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. Amid safety concerns, and anxiety over the fate of a $200 million movie, Where to Watch the Biggest 2023 Awards Contenders. She would say, But it was texted to me by my friend. And the conversation I had with her is what I want people to have after seeing my film: Where did it come from?, In a way, she said, that discussion is more important than specific techniques on how to spot deepfakes because the technology is going to get better so fast., At the moment, she added, most deepfakes you can spot with the naked eye., France isnt hiding his. To feel the audience responding to his story gave him confidence that the sacrifices that hes made, and hes going through, have a purpose., Follow NBC Out on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Few people can publicly attest to this, because anyone who speaks out against Kadyrov becomes an automatic target of the Chechen government. One of the most powerful moments in the documentary, "Welcome to Chechnya," premiering June 30 at 10:00 pm on HBO, has a young gay man recalling his arrest and torture. Its practically seamless more convincing than the de-aging in The Irishman, anyway and points to entire new worlds of possibility in documentary footage preserving peoples anonymity. In case we got caught, thats what wed say we were. When in public, Kurov would frame picture and control settings remotely, using a smartphone app. He was twisting balloons into these elaborate sculptures and selling them to people in front of the main mall in Grozny, Chechnya. Chechnya, also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, republic in southwestern Russia, situated on the northern flank of the Greater Caucasus range. The Russian LGBT Network moves her into an apartment where she must hole up for weeks on end, waiting for a travel visa that might never arrive. Welcome to Chechnya chronicles the persecution of LGBTQ youth in this ultra-conservative society. A reckoning is essential for all of the crimes against human rights the smaller, less consequential ones like name-calling, the ones that are life altering and certainly the most extreme examples, like what we see happening in Chechnya, where its still going on, France said. Simply enter your email address in the box below, Joy of reunion: a happier moment in 'Welcome to Chechnya', Since propaganda of gay relationships was criminalised there in 2013, such anti-, The greater part of the action was caught on the move, with a disturbingly convincing tension. I said Yes, okay! and continued shooting after a moment. To watch Frances latest is to be confronted by the moral dimensions of documentary filmmaking and maybe something deeper, concerning the slippery nature of identity itself. We werent just erasing cards; we were overwriting them to make the data irretrievable. Once the encrypted hard drive arrived in New York, theyd send word back to Russia to overwrite the two remaining drives. My point in telling the story is to tell just enough of it so that its undeniable that its going on there. T he anti-gay purge in Chechnya began in 2017. Until now, its use has largely been limited to anonymous online mischief of various degrees of severity, like inserting Nicolas Cages grin into movies Cage never acted in. (Weve come a long way from slapping black bars over their eyes or sitting in a shadow on Dateline.) Theres a gasp-inducing moment when Grisha goes public and the digital augmentations drop away, revealing his real face for the first time. These scenes dont tell us nearly as much as the scenes in which we hear people speak about their experiences firsthandas one young man does, detailing his torture to his boyfriend, with whom he is joyfully able to reunite. And France had even more horrifying clips that he held back. hide caption. Youre forced to reckon with the nature of identityhow it can cost someone their life. So she held the GoPro low, shielding it with her other arm, or made sure to tuck it behind a coffee cup. For security reasons, these individuals are introduced with aliases, and their circumstances and whereabouts are left deliberately vague. Anya is just a pseudonym for is one of the many who have fled the Chechen Republic as they faced persecution by the government due to their orientation. Keeping people in hiding, taking care of people, keeping them safe and fed, and with medical care for this long extended period, while theyre still struggling with foreign governments to try to keep open that back door to humanitarian parole visas, France said. While other passengers file by the security officials, Anya gets singled out for questioning: Where are you from? Whats your purpose of travel? How long will you stay? Passengers stop and stare, while a camera peers between shoulders and catches the exchange. Being there made me feel like Id been sent back to the French Resistance. Anya arrives and Ivanova films the meetup surreptitiously on a GoPro. It said that people in the caf saw the camera and had become nervous about it, that I should hide it better, Ivanova recounts. He embedded himself with Isteev and another activist, Olga Baranova, and began filming some of the young people who turned to them for help. The people chronicled in Frances film have pictures on their phones documenting the torture they suffered, some of which we see. Chechnyas leader Ramzan Kadyrov is a Putin stooge straight out of central casting, coyly egging on the atrocities in his ridiculous weightlifter shirt. And they signed on as an act of activism.. 2020 documentary about the anti-LGBT purges in Chechnya, facial replacement techniques using artificial intelligence, Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature, Outstanding Directional Achievement in Documentary, Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, "HBO Documentary Films Lands Sundance-Bound Welcome To Chechnya, About Harsh Plight Of LGBTQ Community In Russian Republic", "How Hidden Cameras Captured a Daring Rescue in 'Welcome to Chechnya'", "Sundance 2020: How VFX Pulled Welcome to Chechnya Out of the Shadows Exclusive", 'It Only Ends When They're Dead.' Nichols said he was won over by Frances film. The film follows the work of activists rescuing survivors of torture in Chechnya. To make matters worse, the GoPro screen would power off after one minute. They are tough. Verified. They were sent over WhatsApp groups up the chain of command, so that Ramzan Kadyrov would know that his orders are being carried out., And when you saw the footage, I realized that I wanted to take that away from them, and turn their trophies into evidence, he continued. welcome to chechnya what happened to anya. Chechen forces successfully raided Russian-held Grozny for weapons in March. Anyone can read what you share. It allows us to feel that whammy of: This guy was beaten up and tortured and electrocuted and I am seeing him him being his face bare his soul.. This is David Isteev, a crisis intervention coordinator for the Russian LGBT Network, and he spends his days helping gay and transgender Chechens flee a place where they are no longer safe. Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the autonomous region of Russia, enacted a campaign in 2017 to find, imprison, torture and sometimes kill LGBTQ Chechens. He is confronted over the allegation that LGBT citizens have been getting abducted and tortured by his regime. Tushayev was responsible for kidnapping, torturing and murdering LGBTQ+ people. When he made his first documentary, 2012's How to Survive a Plague, about the early AIDS activists in America, the director didn't hesitate to describe his protagonists there as heroes, for the way that they stood up for what they believed in, against adversity: it's an accolade that seems no less appropriate here. Another substitute face, this time of Joy A. Tomchin, was also used to disguise one of the Chechens in the film. Finding the right word to describe Welcome to Chechnya isnt easy. 21 . . Welcome to Chechnya, directed by David France and produced by Alice Henty, David France, Askold Kurov, and Joy A. Tomchin, 2020, 107 minutes. Ramzan Kadyrov, President of Chechnya, initially denied casualties among his fighters, but on February 28 he acknowledged the deaths of two Chechen servicemen, while not giving their names. Si su padre, miembro del gobierno checheno . But as the movie tells us upfront, France took an extraordinary step to protect their identities further, using sophisticated facial-disguise technology. So last century. His method essentially involved filming unrelated subjects in a studio with a nine-camera array capturing their faces from all angles. [2], Further complicating the production of the film was the need to protect the identities of interviewees. He covered the the Catholic Churchs sexual abuse scandal and wrote the bestselling book Our Fathers, which was turned into a Showtime movie. Homosexuality and gender nonconformity have long been frowned upon in Chechen society. What made the time right for the documentary to be released now? (Photo courtesy of Igor Myakotin/Welcome to Chechnya) Maxim Lapunov at the Sundance Film Festival. Certain hyped-up scenes, with their insistent music and TV expose vibe, fall flat precisely because they add an energy that this situation, an outright tragedy, shouldnt need in order to make its point. Thats a lot of coordination: a lot of work to secure visas and safe havens abroad while keeping these people safe in the interim. And that included extreme security protocols while filming in Chechnya encrypting the footage and smuggling it out of the country. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. "[12] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 86 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[13]. Welcome to Chechnya ends almost exactly as it begins, only a year later with a weary Isteev telling us this story still doesnt have an ending. Then he gets another call. With little emotion, the young man explains his scars as his boyfriend touches those spots and says nothing. (Before getting out of the cab, he dropped his own iPhone X on the floor.) [3] The approach is a "game changer in identity protection," according to Documentary Magazine, and a brand new tool for documentary filmmakers. Its a matter of trusting the process.. And in fact, the Russian LGBTQ movement was left all alone to try and fashion some sort of response to what was going on there. (We hear their real voices almost the entire film is subtitled. The First Chechen War explains a lot of what Russia and Putin are doing in Ukraine today: On New Year's Eve, 1994 Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles poured into the streets of Grozny with an assault expected to snuff out the self-declared Chechcen Republic of Ichkeria, as black smoke poured into the sky from oil tanks set ablaze by a dawn artillery bombardment. Welcome to Chechnya opened with footage of activist David Isteev (pictured below) waiting anxiously on his phone, listening to 21-year-old Anya the names of all except the activists were changed, their faces and voices disguised from the Chechen capital Grozny, tell how she was being blackmailed by a family member threatening to reveal her sexuality. Distressing. The operation begins in a fast-food restaurant. June 30, 2020. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Instead of masking or blurring their faces, theyre replaced digitally with a different face but the replacement images carry all the emotion of the victims. To avoid exposing their work, it was shot in secret, using hidden cameras, cell phones, GoPros, and handycams. People felt for them in a very emotional way, and showed it, France said. France didnt want to talk about any threats he or other members of the production team might have received. Some of the men were released with the expectation that their own relatives would kill them, since the stigma of homosexuality runs deep in this ultra-conservative, primarily Muslim society. They were keepsakes from these horrible events, and they were also deliverables. Looking for more? Welcome to Chechnya follows the stories of some of the gay men and women attempting to move to safety. Its not a story about me, France says simply. Documentarian David France faced an unenviable challenge with his latest film, "Welcome to Chechnya.". We beat this thing up a bit, put tape on it, disabled all the red lights, and made it look like it belongs to somebodys child. Or a tourist. Where photography is strictly forbidden is at passport control. The darkness was painfully visible throughout Welcome to Chechnya, but France somehow managed to close the film in light a beam, however tentative and hesitant, that nevertheless shone through with affirmation. When he went to visit a guy he met online, policemen hiding in the bathroom arrested and detained him. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. Oscar-nominated filmmaker David France follows the activists who expose Russia's war on gays. Be a witness. It was an insane proposition, but the cover story worked, France says. But a problem surfaced the night before the rescue. Some thought it was too much of a risk. This is the kind of film destined to be on "essential" documentary lists for decades to come, the kind we will look back on as critical documentation of a historic wrongdoing. His entire family has to be moved. But I found it remarkably effective in the way it lets these young men and women tell their stories and express a level of emotion that would have been lost if they had been filmed with blurred faces or in heavy shadows. And everybody understood that their own testimony was essential to bringing this atrocity back into the public domain. Here is an ongoing crime against humanity that has not generated the outrage that it deserves, said France, who earned an Oscar nomination for How to Survive a Plague, his 2012 directing debut about AIDS activists in the early days of the epidemic. David France, left, and the face-capture producer Johnny Han watch a volunteer in the studio. Storyville: Welcome to Chechnya, BBC Four review - trauma, tension and resistance |, Dispatches: Hunted - Gay and Afraid, Channel 4, Fleishman Is in Trouble, Disney+ review - a compelling drama about mid-life crises in Manhattan, Drive to Survive, Season 5, Netflix review - fly-on-the wall F1 show may need a reboot, The Gold, BBC One review - gripping dramatisation of the 1983 Brink's-Mat bullion robbery, Fauda, Season 4, Netflix review - Israeli terrorism thriller gets darker and dirtier, Women at War, Netflix review - contrasting stories entwine during the chaos of World War One, Stewart, Sky Documentaries review - touching and insightful portrait of Scottish race ace, Happy Valley, Series 3, BBC One review - tension mounts as the Yorkshire crime drama approaches its conclusion, Stonehouse, ITV review - history repeats itself as farce, Doc Martin Christmas Special, ITV review - Santa comes to Portwenn as the final curtain falls, Blu-ray: Ghost Stories for Christmas, Volume 1. Interspersing the film we saw snatches of video (shot by the perpetrators, intercepted by activists) that showed just that happening, a gay purge being carried out in horrifically vivid detail. 197 posts. Summary: Searing urgency is a guiding force as Welcome to Chechnya shadows a group of activists who risk unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ+ pogrom raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Welcome to Chechnya opened with footage of activist David Isteev ( pictured below) waiting anxiously on his phone, listening to 21-year-old "Anya" - the names of all except the activists were changed, their faces and voices disguised - from the Chechen capital Grozny, tell how she was being blackmailed by a family member threatening to reveal her Everyone in Russia is buried in their phones, says France, so Kurov following suit wouldnt raise any suspicions. Follow. Anya decides to escape, but that isn't so easy with the authorities soon hot on her trail. (President Vladimir Putins government is itself decidedly anti-gay, and has turned a blind eye to the kidnappings, torture and murder of the Kadyrov regime.) Data was immediately moved off-camera cards and loaded in triplicate onto encrypted drives; one was smuggled out of the country and two remained hidden in Russia. This happened shortly after Frontal journalists published their investigation Forced Adoption: The Missing Children of Kherson on the social network. It was my greatest fear: that I could blow up the whole operation. 212 following. We dont have such people here. A FILM BY DAVID FRANCE. The pre-existing material in "Welcome to Chechnya" is by far its most distressing: grainy cellphone and surveillance camera footage of real-life homophobic attacks in the republic, including a. (The Get Out director Jordan Peele tried to raise awareness with an eerie deepfake of Barack Obama.) That's how the moscow duchy looked like in 14th century. Although some didnt. I was told that Maxim had agreed, even on the first conversation, to allow me to film him and that he was a charismatic character, a person who is an entertainer, France said. Afterwards, the cards would be wiped clean. People and footage had to be protected at all costs. I wanted you to feel what he felt at that moment, France said. Maybe shocking. The mere presence of France's camera might endanger their lives and their work, but it's also crucial to drawing international attention to the Chechen government's abuses. There's no time for sweeping shots of foreign. Movie. One young man is fleeing because while he is not a citizen of Chechnya, he has spent time detained in one of its prisons for being gayand upon his release back to Russia, he became a threat to a regime that would rather the world buy into its denialism. ET on HBO. These are ghastly images, and I'm not convinced the film needed all of them to convey the full horror of what's going on. 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