''Welcome to Chechnya'' is a 2020

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

by American reporter, author and documentarian David France.Mike Fleming, Jr
"HBO Documentary Films Lands Sundance-Bound ‘Welcome To Chechnya’, About Harsh Plight Of LGBTQ Community In Russian Republic"
''

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'', December 12, 2019. The film centers on the

anti-gay purges in Chechnya Anti-gay purges in Chechnya in the Chechen Republic, a part of the Russian Federation, have included forced disappearances—secret abductions, imprisonment, torture—and extrajudicial killing by authorities targeting persons based on their ...

of the late 2010s, filming LGBT Chechen refugees using hidden cameras as they made their way out of

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through a network of safehouses aided by activists. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2020 and was released on June 30, 2020, by

HBO Films HBO Films (formerly called HBO Premiere Films and HBO Pictures) is an American production and distribution company, a division of the cable television network HBO that produces feature films and miniseries. The division produces fiction and non- ...

Production

The film follows the work of activists rescuing survivors of torture in Chechnya. To avoid exposing their work, it was shot in secret, using hidden cameras, cell phones, GoPros, and handycams. Further complicating the production of the film was the need to protect the identities of interviewees. 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. Eventually he opted for advanced facial replacement techniques using artificial intelligence and novel

visual effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...

technology so the viewer could see real faces displaying real emotions while still protecting the identities of the speakers. The approach is a "game changer in identity protection," according to Documentary Magazine, and a brand new tool for documentary filmmakers. To protect the identities of the interviewees, they could not move the footage across the internet nor work on it in an open studio setting. Instead, they edited the film in a windowless room in order to keep with security protocols. One of the refugees, Maxim Lapunov, is publicly identified in the film, as he sought, and failed, to get legal redress from Russian authorities. The mysterious disappearance of gay Chechen singer Zelim Bakaev after a visit to Grozny for his sister's wedding in August 2017 also receives a brief mention in the film.

Release

The film premiered at the

2020 Sundance Film Festival The 2020 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 23 to February 2, 2020. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 4, 2019. The opening night film was ''Miss Americana'' directed by Lana Wilson and produced by Morga ...

, and screened at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. It was released on June 30, 2020 by

. It was shown at the

Adelaide Film Festival The Adelaide Film Festival (AFF, formerly ADLFF) is film festival usually held for two weeks in mid-October in cinemas in Adelaide, South Australia. Originally presented biennially in March from 2003, since 2013 AFF has been held in October ...

in October 2020.

Reception

The film received universal critical acclaim, holding an approval rating of on

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based on reviews, with an average rating of . 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."

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, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 86 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Accolades

References

External links

Official website

''Welcome to Chechnya''
at HBO * {{British Academy Television Award for Best International Programme 2020 documentary films 2020 films 2020 LGBT-related films Chechen-language films Documentary films about violence against LGBT people 2020s English-language films HBO documentary films 2020s Russian-language films 2020 multilingual films American multilingual films 2020s American films American LGBT-related documentary films