David Frances HBO documentary about Chechnyas anti-LGBT pogrom is brutal, but necessary. Welcome to Chechnya: Directed by David France. '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. . Its not legal to encrypt in Russia, so we were taking a risk, France notes. Unlike the others, Grisha is unmasked late in the film when he goes before cameras to testify about whats happening in Chechnya. A lavalier mic (considered professional gear, thus suspect) was used when safely inside the shelter. 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.. 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 material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Posted on 21 de fevereiro de 2022 by . Although some didnt. 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. 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. He covered the the Catholic Churchs sexual abuse scandal and wrote the bestselling book Our Fathers, which was turned into a Showtime movie. Its there that he first met the men and women who are featured in his new documentary Welcome to Chechnya, which premieres Tuesday on HBO. Uno de los casos que sigue el documental es el de "Anya", una joven pidiendo ayuda despus de que su to descubre su identidad homosexual. Six months pass, a visa elusive. And what they had put together was a search and rescue operation, like something that you would imagine in a World War II movie. 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. 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. Instead, they deployed Frances iPhone X and a GoPro Hero6. This visual strategy has a curious effect: you look at people without really being able to see them. Ad Choices. 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). 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. But its much more meaningful. 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. And hes drawing some hope from the ongoing protests against racism taking place across the United States and around the world. And not just them, but their family members, too. The target is Anya (a pseudonym), whose plight is revealed at the films start: Pleading for help in a phone call to Russian LGBT Network crisis response coordinator David Isteev, she explains that her uncle is threatening to reveal her lesbianism to her fathera high-ranking government officialunless she has sex with him. This is nonsense, he says. 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'. Few people can publicly attest to this, because anyone who speaks out against Kadyrov becomes an automatic target of the Chechen government. From the start, a disclaimer states that certain subjects have been digitally disguised for their safety. And the world lets them get away with iteven despite documentaries like this. Ghastly. 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. and Anya, a young queer woman from Grozny, who wants to flee her powerful Chechen family. His film reveals the ongoing danger to LGBTQ Chechens targeted for persecution and death in a campaign to 'cleanse' the republic. 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. Welcome To Chechnya. I said Yes, okay! and continued shooting after a moment. The activists are sure to remind us that this violence affects more than just cisgender gay men; the regime is equally perilous for cis women and trans people, though these other stories dont seem to travel nearly as far. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. Theres a clip, in David Frances Welcome to Chechnya, of a 2017 interview with Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov. Its got a beautiful lens on it, says the director, but it looks like a toy. So theres a lot of work to be done.. 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 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. Welcome to Chechnya follows the work of the Russian LGBTQ Network, an activist group working to combat genocide in Chechnya. Welcome to Chechnya airs on HBO Tuesday, June 30, at 10 p.m. Sean Burns Twitter Film CriticSean Burns is a film critic for The ARTery. France doesnt see it as opening a new can of worms so much as the same old one. Chechnya's . Grade: B+ "Welcome to Chechnya" premiered at the Sundance. Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's brutal leader, making a defiant promise to seize Kyiv. 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). 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. It was Grishas particular situation that brought the film's action into direct contact with officialdom. The cruelty is medieval, but the time is now. 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. 10 Chechen gays get tortured and the whole world cares. That's David Isteev, a journalist turned activist at the start of Welcome to Chechnya, a devastating documentary about the Russian Federation republic's purge of its LGBTQ+ population. It was a gay purge. 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. Plans start at $9.99/month. 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. The computer did not have the capacity to touch the internet, France says. And they signed on as an act of activism.. Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the autonomous. 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. He was tortured and forced to name those men, who were then also arrested, tortured and forced to name others, setting off a horrific chain reaction. 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. Anya and her car of dress-shoppers got through. These are the images being broadcast by Russian propaganda channels, leveraging the very presence of Chechen. [3] The approach is a "game changer in identity protection," according to Documentary Magazine, and a brand new tool for documentary filmmakers. 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. (Before getting out of the cab, he dropped his own iPhone X on the floor.) welcome to chechnya what happened to anya. But a problem surfaced the night before the rescue. 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. Saudi jihadist Ibn al-Khattab staged a devastating ambush of a Russian convoy at Shatoy on April 16 that prompted the . Welcome to Chechnya follows the stories of some of the gay men and women attempting to move to safety. Like other refugees, Anya had her face replaced with a digital veil in post-production (see In Digital Disguise). 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. France, a former Newsweek editor turned filmmaker (How to Survive a Plague, 2012), bristles at the term, a portmanteau of computer-assisted deep learning and fake., Deepfake changes what people say and do, France said. The unrelated subjects were mostly queer activists in New York who I found on Instagram and elsewhere, France said. Everyones nervous, knowing that at any minute Anyas name could appear on a federal wanted list. With little emotion, the young man explains his scars as his boyfriend touches those spots and says nothing. 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. Will a documentary that expressly embraces the technique help matters? Welcome to Chechnya is a terrifying documentary about the gay purges happening in Chechnya, Russia. Its not a story about me, France says simply. Director David Frances 2012 How to Survive a Plague was to my mind one of the decades finest documentaries. 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. 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. Sometimes thats a tall order. It was my greatest fear: that I could blow up the whole operation. Luckily, they had enough faith in me. Where photography is strictly forbidden is at passport control. After ineffective attempts at funding Chechen opposition groups, a Russian invasion began on December 11, 1994. (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.) All Rights Reserved. Some strange people came to my flat and spoke with my mom. Kadyrov and his security forces have been widely accused by international human rights groups of extrajudicial arrests, torture and killings. 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. 197 posts. A FILM BY DAVID FRANCE. He was tortured by. The Network helps him move to an undisclosed location in Europe with his boyfriend of 10 years. 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. HBO Max And this changes nothing. Where do the new faces actually come from? The most nerve-wracking sequence in David Frances Welcome to Chechnya is, without doubt, the rescue of Anya. 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. If anything, the activists tell us, the women need more help escaping. 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. The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. deductible, Report a missed paper by emailingsubscribe@sltrib.comor calling801-237-2900, For e-edition questions or comments, contact customer support801-237-2900or emailsubscribe@sltrib.com. 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. 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. Now, it must bring him down Jonathan Littell Putin believed he could invade Ukraine because everything we failed to do over the last 22 years taught him. It isnt as dramatic as a pulse-pounding scene at the airport, waiting for passport approvals and hoping everyones cover story works out. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax Deepfake Technology Enters the Documentary World. 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. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. It's a bold gambit that may put off those who find it too duplicitous in the context of a documentary. He made it his job to bring joy to people. Read that word, and digest what it means. 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. The people chronicled in Frances film have pictures on their phones documenting the torture they suffered, some of which we see. All products featured on Vanity Fair are independently selected by our editors. For Welcome to Chechnya, he set up a secret editing suite and remained entirely offline while on the job. Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story. 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. They talk about their injuries and show us bruises that havent yet healed. Enter activists David Isteev and Olga Baranova of Chechnyas covert LGBTQ+ network, a modern-day Underground Railroad smuggling the regimes would-be victims to secret safe houses where they can await visas and asylum from sympathetic countries. 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. To have the savvy to negotiate a political media landscape where a video could potentially be a deepfake, or a legitimate video could be called a deepfake, I think those are cases people need to be aware of, he said. 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. The moment is extremely tense. A gay couple in Welcome to Chechnya. The faces were replaced in postproduction. Be a witness. Until it doesnt: In one of the films more breathtaking moments, the effects drop away after a gay refugee, Maksim Lapunov, reclaims his name and his real face at a news conference. Would you like to receive event invitations, funding news, and other updates from the International Documentary Association? And Im still on it. Everyone in Russia is buried in their phones, says France, so Kurov following suit wouldnt raise any suspicions. Those are the stories that have really fascinated me the way that their activists handle these challenges and the specter of death. There's no time for sweeping shots of foreign. When transferring data from a card, for instance, that computer would have its Wi-Fi card removed and Bluetooth disabled. 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. Instead, they edited the film in a windowless room in order to keep with security protocols. 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. (We hear their real voices almost the entire film is subtitled. The plan was for Ivanova to control her GoPro with a smartphone app, like Kurov did with his Sony. The documentary's use of digital technology to disguise its vulnerable subjects, and hence avoid putting them into an even more dangerous predicament, is surprisingly unobtrusive. (All refugees are assigned pseudonyms, such as Grisha and Anya.) 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. Its a matter of trusting the process.. 'Welcome to Chechnya' Review: A look at state-sanctioned torture, rape and murder of homosexuals in Russia. And I understood, of course.. I was thankful we were able to capture that., For her part, Ivanova received some visitors after several expeditions for the film. They thought I was some sort of crazy nut.. It was released on June 30, 2020 by HBO Films. But still these elegantly edited cinematic set-pieces are interrupted by blunt visions of horror trophy videos captured on Chechen citizens cell phones of savage beatings, gang rapes and even a stoning. 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.. I want people to be invested in it. A film about persecuted gay and lesbian Chechens uses digital manipulation to guard their identities without losing their humanity. 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. Theyre one of Hollywoods brightest starsand most troubled actors. Anyone can read what you share. Maybe it shouldnt be. Despite this, she managed to capture all the essentials. [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]. Since 2016, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has led a pogrom against the . It was by far the most emotional journey Ive ever been on, said France in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. 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. To remain inconspicuous, only amateur camera gear was used on the film. Afterwards, the activists reunite at a meeting spot, where the women change clothes and Anyas phone is destroyed. After some chitchat, the women leave by taxi for the airport. Speaking by Zoom from London, she summed up the swirl of emotions nervousness, liberation, even possible enlightenment set off by deepfakes arrival in the documentary world. 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. But the greater part of the action of Welcome to Chechnya was caught on the move, with a disturbingly convincing tension, as the film followed various strands as they developed, unpredictably, in real time (its a considerable achievement, not least in editing, to make such an approach convincing rather than contrived). I come from a news background, so I love the idea of making something that really could have happened, said Francesca Panetta, co-director of the video. What we did was to borrow from the world of deepfakes and find this social justice use for it, he explained. I think the point's been made and now it's time to take . They were keepsakes from these horrible events, and they were also deliverables. There is, for example, the case of a woman they call Anya, whose father is a high-ranking official in Chechnya and whose uncle has threatened to tell her father about her sexualitya death sentenceunless she sleeps with him. Harrowing and brutal, Welcome to Chechnya, France's third film, is all the more prescient right now. Republican Congressman Blames Mass Shootings on Women Having Rights. Then its over, and Anya is free to go. It was very cumbersome, but necessary to keep my end of the promise, France said. 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. 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. 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.. Oscar; Crticas; . Movie. So there was always this dark shadow of the violence that hung over every moment of the time that I was with them.. Looking for more? Activist David Isteev, left, and a cohort organize an escape in a scene from 'Welcome to Chechnya.'. 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. Thank you! 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 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. 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The step raises familiar questions about nonfiction movies. 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. At the airport, photography is not allowed, though authorities tolerate selfies. 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 (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. Oscar-nominated filmmaker David France follows the activists who expose Russia's war on gays. Welcome to Chechnya is not easy to watch. 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. 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. Chechnya, also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, republic in southwestern Russia, situated on the northern flank of the Greater Caucasus range. People and footage had to be protected at all costs. Shoulders and catches the exchange al-Khattab staged a devastating ambush of a documentary the Greater Caucasus.!, while a camera peers between shoulders and catches the exchange of Anya. stories have. Voices almost the entire film is subtitled wrote the bestselling book our Fathers, which turned. Ivanova received some visitors after several expeditions for the first time its got a beautiful lens on it says! 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