His entire family has to be moved. A gripping account of ACT UP and TAGs extraordinary lifesaving efforts during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, the film chronicled a community left to fend for itself in the face of mass medical negligence and societal indifference. 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. The effect is never quite seamless. Anya and her car of dress-shoppers got through. Its access is unprecedented, made possible only by anonymizing the faces of these exiles using deepfake technology that makes them appear just this side of normal. (Courtesy of HBO) "Welcome to Chechnya" premieres Tuesday on HBO. Amid safety concerns, and anxiety over the fate of a $200 million movie, Where to Watch the Biggest 2023 Awards Contenders. . Director David Frances 2012 How to Survive a Plague was to my mind one of the decades finest documentaries. This is nonsense, he says. (Pavel Golovkin | AP file photo) Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov smiles prior to President Vladimir Putin's annual state of the nation address in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Dec. 1, 2016. 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. I was so involved in the technical work for the months leading up to Sundance that I hadnt stepped back to see the film. 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. The Trump Family Behaves Exactly How Youd Expect in Documentary Subpoenaed by Jan. 6 Committee. Among those in the film are David Isteev, who leads the rescue missions through the Russian LGBT Network and Olga Baranova, director of the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives. Its a matter of trusting the process.. The other is the story of "Grisha", a 30-year-old man who went to work in Chechnya only to be arrested, tortured and forced to give up details of other. I said Yes, okay! and continued shooting after a moment. Anya's story is one of the main threads. (The films cinematographer, Askold Kurov, stepped aside for this mission since its cover story required a female camera operator.). Anya, the daughter of a high-ranking official in the Chechen government and extensive resources to track her down, is deposited into an apartment at an undisclosed location in Eurasia. We see some of those abuses in the movie's most disturbing footage, much of it secretly filmed on cell phones and spliced into the film in brief jolts. For many, simply walking out of Chechnya isn't an option. 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. Illia Ponomarenko, a defense reporter for The Kyiv Independent, tweeted: "Magomed Tushayev, one of . Chechnya, there are no homosexuals. Some strange people came to my flat and spoke with my mom. You can just put something like a book on top of the GoPro and it becomes invisible. She adds, You can always tell them you didnt understand.. So I was following the footsteps of my heroes. His companions were two guides hed hired. He also long covered the AIDS crisis, about which he wrote the award-winning book How to Survive a Plague, adapted from his Oscar-nominated 2012 documentary of the same title (which also debuted at Sundance). David wanted to tell the story as quickly and urgently as possible; there are enough examples, definitely. She was being blackmailed by an uncle who discovered she is a lesbian . So I became a selfie queen, says France. I decided not to use any special equipment or hidden camerasfor example, a camera in your eyeglasses. A group of activists risk their lives fighting for LGBTQ+ rights in Chechnya. This is documented by the people who did it themselves, and those same people have denied in public forum that anything like this is happening there. 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.). May 31, 2021 In Southeastern Europe, in a small Russian-controlled Republic called Chechnya, there is a brutal genocide taking place. They were keepsakes from these horrible events, and they were also deliverables. 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. 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. From the start, a disclaimer states that certain subjects have been digitally disguised for their safety. 10 Chechen gays get tortured and the whole world cares. I didnt want to create a reel of horrors, I wanted to underscore what had happened to the people who were in the film, France said. 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. Want to get a head start on your Oscar predictions? 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). Where photography is strictly forbidden is at passport control. It was by far the most emotional journey Ive ever been on, said France in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. 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. He was twisting balloons into these elaborate sculptures and selling them to people in front of the main mall in Grozny, Chechnya. Like other refugees, Anya had her face replaced with a digital veil in post-production (see In Digital Disguise). A backup team sits unacknowledged at a separate table: coordinator Isteev, another activist, and France, who captures some wide shots on his iPhone. Finding the right word to describe Welcome to Chechnya isnt easy. Looking for more? I appeared to be smiling at my own image while actually grabbing shots over his shoulder. Like all great political documentaries, Welcome to Chechnya is a call to action. And everybody understood that their own testimony was essential to bringing this atrocity back into the public domain. 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? And Im still on it. The camerawork is rough and ragged; the sense of menace is palpable. We witnessed Anyas extrication from Chechnya across the mountains, the first step in an evacuation that saw her moved to temporary safety in the hinterland of a neighbouring country (her journey would go no further, not the only example where family coercion or other intervention would prove more powerful than fear). The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax Another substitute face, this time of Joy A. Tomchin, was also used to disguise one of the Chechens in the film. 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. After the initial gains of the Russian army, the Chechen rebels demonstrated a . I asked them if they would lend their faces as a human shield to protect the identities of the folks Id filmed. We also see a few clips that France acquired including a gay man being raped by his captors and a lesbian whose life is about to be ended by members of her own family and it sucks the breath right out of you. It was Grishas particular situation that brought the film's action into direct contact with officialdom. It isnt as dramatic as a pulse-pounding scene at the airport, waiting for passport approvals and hoping everyones cover story works out. Welcome to Chechnya follows the stories of some of the gay men and women attempting to move to safety. ET on HBO. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 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. 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. 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.. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival,[8] and screened at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. Since 2016, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has led a pogrom against the . 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 that hasnt changed since the documentary was completed. Anyone can read what you share. sltrib.com 1996-2023 The Salt Lake Tribune. Horrific. (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. 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. Managing to extricate men and women from there, they looked after them in safe houses in Moscow and elsewhere, before finally in the best outcome, at least relocating them to where they could live in safety. (Photo courtesy of Igor Myakotin/Welcome to Chechnya) David France at the Sundance Film Festival. Welcome To Chechnya. His bigoted policies and authoritarian behavior make him just as bad a pick for the top job in Washington. The unrelated subjects were mostly queer activists in New York who I found on Instagram and elsewhere, France said. For security reasons, these individuals are introduced with aliases, and their circumstances and whereabouts are left deliberately vague. In Russia, this equipment needs certain certifications and permissions. Its not legal to encrypt in Russia, so we were taking a risk, France notes. 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.. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 4,370 followers. All products featured on Vanity Fair are independently selected by our editors. France even had a decoy phone with proof: downloaded soccer-fan photos and videos, stats about the Egyptian team, vistas with his tour guides. France is an award-winning journalist who has been a war correspondent in Central America. HBO. 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 Jimmy Kimmel Roasts Fragile Snowflake Donald Trump for Allegedly Trying to Censor Him, Ghostwriting Gloria Swanson: The Strange, Sexually Charged Genesis of a Legendary Autobiography, Ezra Millers Messiah Delusions: Inside. Whats not obvious in the filmthough not on purposeis that this shot was taken from the backup teams taxi, not Anyas. "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. Isteev had dropped it there on his way out; according to plan, he and the backup team left right before Anyas arrival. A FILM BY DAVID FRANCE. With no help from the Kremlin and only faint global condemnation, activists take matters into their own hands. Frances provocative solution is Welcome to Chechnya, the unsettling film that debuted Tuesday on HBO and involves extensive postproduction work: It marshals advanced computer technology to superimpose supple, completely fabricated faces over 23 hunted individuals. His almost incredible sang froid was matched only by that of his colleague Olga Baranova. 2022 International Documentary Association. Here security guards inspect passports and sharply confer about one. Being there made me feel like Id been sent back to the French Resistance. For Anyas rescue operation, the Sony stayed home. All technology has a dual moral purpose, he argued. 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. Welcome to Chechnya pays important tribute to the courage of its subjects, including activists like Isteev and Baranova, who risk their own persecution and exposure. It was my greatest fear: that I could blow up the whole operation. Six months pass, a visa elusive. On the other end of the line is Anya, a young lesbian whose father is a big muckity-muck in the Chechen government. 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. 4,370 Followers, 212 Following, 197 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Welcome To Chechnya (@welcometochechnya) welcometochechnya. Im still in contact with all those people. Disgraceful. '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. All Rights Reserved. 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. Welcome to Chechnya chronicles the persecution of LGBTQ youth in this ultra-conservative society. Welcome to Chechnya is a 2020 documentary film by American reporter, author and documentarian David France. After six months of quarantine in a safe house awaiting a visa, she lost hope and left. Read that word, and digest what it means. A film about persecuted gay and lesbian Chechens uses digital manipulation to guard their identities without losing their humanity. 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. The main camera, operated by Kurov, was a Sony FDR-AX100 handycam. Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story. France doesnt see it as opening a new can of worms so much as the same old one. (Photo courtesy of Igor Myakotin/Welcome to Chechnya) Maxim Lapunov at the Sundance Film Festival. And my task was to convince them to let me shoot their faces and explore their journey, with a promise that I would find a way to disguise them.. 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. Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the autonomous. [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]. Its a huge enterprise but I think it works, he added. ), Everybody understood the importance of telling the story. I love her. To make matters worse, the GoPro screen would power off after one minute. By Neetha K Published on : 18:00 PST, Jun 30, 2020 . 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. Ghastly. Hearing the victims recount their stories is devastating. Shooting Scenarios is a new column that takes a single scene and breaks it down cinematographically, looking at shooting logistics, creative challenges, and camera gear deployed. 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