Welcome to Chechnya is a 2020 documentary film by American reporter, author and documentarian David France. 10 Chechen gays get tortured and the whole world cares. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Distressing. The film follows a number of people who get out of Chechnya. Afterwards, the activists reunite at a meeting spot, where the women change clothes and Anyas phone is destroyed. The face moves exactly the same way. 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. 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. Their cover story is that Anya is meeting two family friends who are taking her dress-shopping. To make matters worse, the GoPro screen would power off after one minute. People and footage had to be protected at all costs. Nor did the editing and VFX suites in New York. According to Representative Billy Long, abortions, not guns, are the problem. 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). His entire family has to be moved. 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. Welcome to Chechnya, which premiered at Sundance in January and won the U.S. documentary special jury award for editing, is at once repellent and fascinating as were introduced to people whose lives are in danger because of their sexual orientation including some who have survived imprisonment, beatings and torture. His second documentary, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017), focuses on a self-described drag queen and one of the leaders of the Stonewall uprising whose death in 1992 was ruled a suicide by police despite considerable evidence she was killed. And hes drawing some hope from the ongoing protests against racism taking place across the United States and around the world. (The Get Out director Jordan Peele tried to raise awareness with an eerie deepfake of Barack Obama.) It was Grishas particular situation that brought the film's action into direct contact with officialdom. In Welcome to Chechnya, the third film from Academy Award nominee David France, viewers are asked to relinquish the comforts of abstraction. One in particular sticks with me: a pop singer named Zelim Bakaev, who disappeared in 2017 and is thought to been captured, tortured, and murdered after attending his sisters wedding. Welcome to Chechnya is a terrifying documentary about the gay purges happening in Chechnya, Russia. When the documentarian David France decided to chronicle the anti-gay and lesbian purges that had unleashed a wave of fear and violence in Chechnya, he needed more than just a camera. [2], Further complicating the production of the film was the need to protect the identities of interviewees. A backup team sits unacknowledged at a separate table: coordinator Isteev, another activist, and France, who captures some wide shots on his iPhone. France is an award-winning journalist who has been a war correspondent in Central America. 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. France doesnt see it as opening a new can of worms so much as the same old one. 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. The piece will go live on July 20 at moondisaster.org. We meet survivors and their family members, including Grisha, who was beaten and tortured for 12 days so badly injured he could only crawl afterward. And it still is. Chechnya's . This fear is not abstract. Afterwards, the cards would be wiped clean. The film follows the work of activists rescuing survivors of torture in Chechnya. He wants you to see them. [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.[1]. France wanted to put a real human face on the story, so conventional techniques of disguising one's appearance, such as blurring their faces, filming them in darkness or hiring actors to stage re-enactments were not enough. Chechnyas leader Ramzan Kadyrov is a Putin stooge straight out of central casting, coyly egging on the atrocities in his ridiculous weightlifter shirt. Together with various support initiatives, they had come to oversee a network that had arisen almost spontaneously back in 2017 to respond to what was happening in Chechnya. In another, a woman is attacked by a relative who it's implied but not shown proceeds to bludgeon her to death. Nichols said he was won over by Frances film. Welcome to Chechnya airs June 30 at 7 p.m. (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.) And what they had put together was a search and rescue operation, like something that you would imagine in a World War II movie. He made it his job to bring joy to people. There were times when we actually backed off on some areas, the machine did better or sharper, and we were concerned that we werent telling the audience that something was going on.. Heinous. And as in France's first film, the people. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival,[8] and screened at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. Those are the stories that have really fascinated me the way that their activists handle these challenges and the specter of death. David wanted to tell the story as quickly and urgently as possible; there are enough examples, definitely. Welcome to Chechnya follows the stories of some of the gay men and women attempting to move to safety. Eventually he opted for advanced facial replacement techniques using artificial intelligence and novel visual effects technology so the viewer could see real faces displaying real emotions while still protecting the identities of the speakers. Chechnya, there are no homosexuals. Reflecting on his participation in Anyas rescue, France says, I dont think Ive experienced anything as harrowing as that in my life. Welcome to Chechnya (HBO): An inside look at a group of activists risking their lives to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ campaign in the Russian republic of Chechnya. Youre forced to reckon with the nature of identityhow it can cost someone their life. Verified. Chechen authorities let him go because he is not ethnically Chechen. It's there that he first met the men and women who are featured in his new documentary "Welcome to Chechnya," which premieres Tuesday on HBO. Everyone in Russia is buried in their phones, says France, so Kurov following suit wouldnt raise any suspicions. Instead, they deployed Frances iPhone X and a GoPro Hero6. T he anti-gay purge in Chechnya began in 2017. These people are not professional movers: they are former journalists and photographers, artists, academicsnone of whom had experience with helping people covertly escape oppressive regimes, until they did. 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. Where photography is strictly forbidden is at passport control. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. It comes midway through the HBO documentary that premieres June 30, so weve already met the Russian LGBT activists who help Chechen gays and lesbians flee the republics anti-gay purge. 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. He called it an underblur or halo, intentionally added so youll be aware of the manipulation. 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. [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. A film about persecuted gay and lesbian Chechens uses digital manipulation to guard their identities without losing their humanity. Some strange people came to my flat and spoke with my mom. . 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. The face of a volunteer, Miguel Grisanti, is used to cloak the real subject in Welcome to Chechnya.. June 30, 2020. 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. That is what the tyrannical leader Ramzan Kadyrov has decided. The film splits focus between her story and that of Grisha, a torture victim and Russian national who after much deliberation decides to come forward and file a criminal complaint, hoping to expose these atrocities on the world stage. Since the films Sundance premiere Ive seen a few folks take exception to the slickness with which France and editor Tyler H. Walk have given Welcome to Chechnya the lean sizzle of a white-knuckle suspense picture, and I must confess Ive wrestled with whether or not Im trivializing serious subject matter when I tell people I spent most of the movie on the edge of my seat. To avoid exposing their work, it was shot in secret, using hidden cameras, cell phones, GoPros, and handycams. The movie opens on a dark street in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, where a man smokes a cigarette and arranges secret meetings and transports by phone. Instead, we see David and a team of associates covertly enter Grozny with a carefully crafted plan to extract desperate subjects - in this case, "Anya", the twenty-one year old daughter of a local government official who is being blackmailed by her uncle, threatening to expose her sexuality if she doesn't allow him to rape her. So last century. He was tortured by. Im still processing, and so is the rest of the crew. 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. Its a huge enterprise but I think it works, he added. I appeared to be smiling at my own image while actually grabbing shots over his shoulder. 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. 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. 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. Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov is a Putin stooge straight out of central casting, coyly egging on the atrocities in his ridiculous weightlifter shirt. Horrific. Because they are still in safe houses, and they are still pursuing this suitTheres no telling how long that battles going to last, but theyre in it for the long run., Lapunov was able to feel some of that support when he traveled to the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year for the docs premiere. There are many people not identified at all, but the doc includes disturbing and graphic footage of them being beaten and tortured. Grisha now going by his real name, Maxim may have had his identity finally restored, but the fate of his call for investigation would be depressingly familiar, refused in another rote court decision (his fight for justice continues at the European Court for Hight Rights). Thanks to the extraordinary access attained by France and company, were provided passenger seat views of daring midnight escapes and hair-raising trips through customs, with a percolating electronic score out of a Michael Mann picture. With Olga Baranova, David Isteev, Ramzan Kadyrov, Maxim Lapunov. It was an insane proposition, but the cover story worked, France says. . The website's critics consensus reads: "An illuminating and urgent call to action, Welcome to Chechnya portrays the horrors of the mass persecution of the LGBTQ+ community in the Chechen Republic with tenacity and tenderness. Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically. The found footage of attacks on members of the Chechen LGBTQ community illustrates the level of terror victims experienced and what might happen to them if they got caught. From Academy Award-nominated director David France (How to Survive a Plague, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson) comes Welcome to Chechnya, a powerful and eye-opening documentary about a. One of these digitally altered subjects is a 21-year-old lesbian introduced as "Anya," whose uncle knows her sexual orientation and demands that she sleep with him or risk being outed to her father, a powerful Chechen official. A Anya la seguiremos en una fuga de pelcula de suspenso y algo similar pasar con otros personajes. Filmed between August 2017 and early 2019, "Welcome to Chechnya" focuses on LGBT people forced to flee Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus. Unlike the others, Grisha is unmasked late in the film when he goes before cameras to testify about whats happening in Chechnya. And this changes nothing. Welcome to Chechnya follows the work of the Russian LGBTQ Network, an activist group working to combat genocide in Chechnya. And while there initially isn't much background on the two fugitive subjects the 30-year-old "Grisha" and the 21-year-old Muslim lesbian "Anya" you quickly understand why. 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. Which meant, in the cases we saw here, abroad, in which they were assisted by a range of international gay organisations, as well as those embassies in Moscow, Canada clearly prominent among them, that proved receptive. We dont have such people here. Were introduced to members of the Russian LGBTQ Network, whose members put their own safety at risk by smuggling people out of Chechnya and, in the best-case scenarios, out of Russia. For many, simply walking out of Chechnya isn't an option. A FILM BY DAVID FRANCE. And that included extreme security protocols while filming in Chechnya encrypting the footage and smuggling it out of the country. From acclaimed journalist and Oscar (R)-nominated director David France (How to Survive a Plague) comes this searing documentary about a group of brave activists risking their lives to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ campaign in the Russian republic of Chechnya--which has led to the torture and disappearance of untold numbers of people. Its footage that was shot as trophies by the people who committed those crimes. After some chitchat, the women leave by taxi for the airport. The Network helps him move to an undisclosed location in Europe with his boyfriend of 10 years. After six months of quarantine in a safe house awaiting a visa, she lost hope and left. This is nonsense, he says. On March 1, Ukrainian Armed Forces wrote on Twitter that Magomed Tushayev, a pro-Putin Chechen general who led the gay purge in Chechnya, was killed in Ukraine. 212 following. 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. 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. Ghastly. The main camera, operated by Kurov, was a Sony FDR-AX100 handycam. Blurring out a mob informant? 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. He is confronted over the allegation that LGBT citizens have been getting abducted and tortured by his regime. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Patricia Thomson is a longtime film journalist and contributing writer for American Cinematographer. Even Facebook, not known for its strict policing of content, pledged to ban deepfakes in January. To remain inconspicuous, only amateur camera gear was used on the film. Welcome to Chechnya is not easy to watch. That's how the moscow duchy looked like in 14th century. Will a documentary that expressly embraces the technique help matters? 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. Giving them different faces also makes a kind of poetic sense: It's a reminder that to be LGBTQ in a repressive society is to never feel comfortable in your own skin. welcome to chechnya what happened to anya. How would he shield the identity of at-risk gay and lesbian Chechens fleeing the region via a network of safe houses, while also preserving their emotions, their affections and expressions? These are the images being broadcast by Russian propaganda channels, leveraging the very presence of Chechen. 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 chronicles the persecution of LGBTQ youth in this ultra-conservative society. France included. 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. 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. The most nerve-wracking sequence in David France's Welcome to Chechnya is, without doubt, the rescue of Anya. 'Welcome to Chechnya' Director on Doc's Impact: "It's Engendering a Real Wave of Empathy for LGBTQ Russians" Oscar nominee David France's startling depiction of the courageous effort to save. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story. ET on HBO. I was thankful we were able to capture that., For her part, Ivanova received some visitors after several expeditions for the film. War brought Vladimir Putin to power in 1999. A guide to the hidden references in this buzzy anthologys new episodes, from first-season callbacks to what, Monica Lewinskys Verdict on the Johnny DeppAmber Heard Trial: We Are All Guilty. By K. Austin Collins June 30, 2020 There's a clip, in David France 's Welcome to Chechnya, of a 2017 interview with Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov. 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. Chechnya's been especially . (We hear their real voices almost the entire film is subtitled. Post author: Post published: May 11, 2022 Post category: orchard lake united hockey Post comments: famous asian psychologists famous asian psychologists For example, we hear within the opening few minutes the testimony of a young Muslim girl (named "Anya", although all names have been changed) whose sexuality has been discovered by her uncle, who vows to tell . Luckily, they had enough faith in me. May 31, 2021 In Southeastern Europe, in a small Russian-controlled Republic called Chechnya, there is a brutal genocide taking place. The main location we saw was one of the Moscow safe houses that provided a temporary home for those en route to somewhere else; its routine of wary everyday life, interspersed by periodic departures for the airport, seemed almost normal until painfully broken by a traumatised young man attempting suicide. I was so involved in the technical work for the months leading up to Sundance that I hadnt stepped back to see the film. And then theres the evidence we see for ourselves: cell phone footage of people being beaten and harassed. I want people to be invested in it. Courtroom porn and social media have turned innocent bystanders into a mass of mudslingers. Director David Frances 2012 How to Survive a Plague was to my mind one of the decades finest documentaries. 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. The plan was for Ivanova to control her GoPro with a smartphone app, like Kurov did with his Sony. France even had a decoy phone with proof: downloaded soccer-fan photos and videos, stats about the Egyptian team, vistas with his tour guides. So she held the GoPro low, shielding it with her other arm, or made sure to tuck it behind a coffee cup. One creative project thats come out of Harrells program, the Center for Advanced Virtuality, is a seven-minute video titled In Event of Moon Disaster. In it, a notorious 1969 speech written for Richard Nixon meant to be delivered only in the wake of a catastrophic Apollo 11 mishap is merged with the actual televised 1974 resignation speech, resulting in a spooky bit of alternative history. Immediately, as theyre being slapped awake and their arm bandaged, we hear a reprimand: Dont fucking create problems for us. And: There are other people here besides you.. D. Fox Harrell, professor of digital media and artificial intelligence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said there was an educational potential in synthetic media, the term he prefers to deepfake redeeming it from mere deception. And then to see it with an audience and to be able to introduce the people who were in the film to that audience it was a very gratifying experience.. Si su padre, miembro del gobierno checheno . Catch up on the years best movies, whether in theaters or now streaming at home. [3] The approach is a "game changer in identity protection," according to Documentary Magazine, and a brand new tool for documentary filmmakers. They were keepsakes from these horrible events, and they were also deliverables. Since 2016, Chechnya's tyrannical leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has waged a depraved operation to "cleanse the blood" of LGBTQ+ Searing urgency is a guiding force as Welcome . Sustenance Without Sacrifices: Towards Equitable Workplaces, Sound Advice: How to Ensure Your Audio Playback Comes Through Loud and Clear, Documentary Sound: Setting up a Wireless System, 'The Rescue' Recounts the 2018 Thailand Cave Mission, Go with the Flow: Streamlining Your Post-Production Process, How Hidden Cameras Captured a Daring Rescue in 'Welcome to Chechnya'. But also, theyre inspiring stories, I think., (How to Survive a Plague is streaming on Amazon Prime; The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson is streaming on Netflix.). (The films cinematographer, Askold Kurov, stepped aside for this mission since its cover story required a female camera operator.). What we did was to borrow from the world of deepfakes and find this social justice use for it, he explained. 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. Thats where he was seized by the security agents. Welcome to Chechnya, directed by David France and produced by Alice Henty, David France, Askold Kurov, and Joy A. Tomchin, 2020, 107 minutes. For most of the 100 minutes that followed, Isteev seemed to be in much the same position, trying to juggle the fates of those who had ended up under his protection as he attempted to spirit them to safety. But there's no doubting the depth of its fury and anguish on behalf of the victims and survivors we see and the many, many more that we don't. It was very cumbersome, but necessary to keep my end of the promise, France said. Everyones nervous, knowing that at any minute Anyas name could appear on a federal wanted list. Kadyrov and his security forces have been widely accused by international human rights groups of extrajudicial arrests, torture and killings. But there is not, of course, footage of them actually being tortured. [5], One of the refugees, Maxim Lapunov, is publicly identified in the film, as he sought, and failed, to get legal redress from Russian authorities.[6]. Like all great political documentaries, Welcome to Chechnya is a call to action. The story that it followed had started back in 2017, with a crack-down by the authorities in the southern republic of Chechnya that saw widespread police torture of gay men; in a society where concepts of family shame and honour killing remain absolutely real, victims were then handed over to their families, most probably to be murdered by them, the same fate awaiting women as well. from Anya, a 21-year-old threatened by her uncle to have intercourse with him, or he'll reveal her homosexuality to her father, a high-ranking official . Six months pass, a visa elusive. He did say they have been concerned about safety at screenings, and that they took special safety precautions at Sundance to protect the people who appear in the film from any undue danger.. When transferring data from a card, for instance, that computer would have its Wi-Fi card removed and Bluetooth disabled. Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger 7. 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. 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. Welcome to Chechnya chronicles the persecution of LGBTQ youth in this ultra-conservative society. And as in Frances first film, the people most in desperate need of help have once again been abandoned to their own devices. Bogdan Left, Grisha Right in "Welcome to Chechnya". 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. I wanted you to feel what he felt at that moment, France said. Ryan Laney, Frances visual effects supervisor and a 30-year veteran whose credits include Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), persuaded the director that a deep-learning computer process was the easiest answer, even on a documentarys tight budget. 2022 International Documentary Association. He denies the torture outright, in other words; so does the Kremlin. 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. When he went to visit a guy he met online, policemen hiding in the bathroom arrested and detained him. Agents warned Ivanova she couldnt film. Chechnya, also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, republic in southwestern Russia, situated on the northern flank of the Greater Caucasus range. Tushayev was responsible for kidnapping, torturing and murdering LGBTQ+ people. 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. Without that outrage, it will keep going. 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. 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