Welcome to Chechnya - Metro Weekly - July 9 2020

“NATIONWIDE POLLS TELL US THAT ALMOST HALF
OF RUSSIANS FIND GAY PEOPLE TO BE TOTALLY
UNACCEPTABLE. That is because they've been fed this
propaganda against the community by state-controlled
media. Activism has no purchase on state controlled media.”
rehearsals. What will you do if this happens? What if this happens?
They will begin with a questionnaire, sometimes 10, 12,
15 pages about the mission. Then we would create the narrative
that I would present if I was caught, about what I was doing and
why I was doing it. Only one time did we need to actually call
upon that alternative script. That was as we were leaving the
Chechen Republic with Anya, who is in the film. I was in the car
behind her, the security car. We were just following behind, with
no acknowledged connection to the car in front of us. We were
stopped at a checkpoint where my American passport raised
alarms. I was detained and questioned about what I was doing
there. All of the rehearsal made it seamlessly possible to argue
my way out of detention. It really paid off.
MW: Writing about the AFI Docs Festival recently, I was struck by
how of-the-moment some of the selections were. The festival had,
for example, a film about the female officers of the Minneapolis
police department, which is a really important movie to show right
now. It seems documentary filmmakers have to anticipate where
the story they're covering might land by the time they're finished.
With that in mind, how do you account for what the story is going
to be by the time your work is done?
FRANCE: That's a really good question. This is my first documentary
shot in real-time, a sort of vérité documentary. I knew that
what I was studying was the activists, and their lives, and their
motivations for taking on such a dangerous assignment without
any previous experience doing such harrowing work. I knew
that there would be a story in that no matter what the outcome
was. Then for me, it was a matter of spending enough time with
them so that I could understand their outcomes, and I could
understand their challenges. And I could understand what it was
like to be them. I knew there would be an answer to this question
no matter what they were able to accomplish in this field.
MW: Speaking of outcomes, do you have any updates on Anya, or
Bogdan and Maxim?
FRANCE: Anya is still a mystery. I'm hoping that the information
that we have is accurate, that says that she's safe and alive, and
that she remains that way. But I don't have any contact with her,
unfortunately. Bogdan and Maxim are still
Watch the Trailer for
“Welcome to Chechnya”
living in the shadows in Europe. They're
moving from place to place. They have to
keep moving in order to keep from being
discovered. That has meant that they've
suffered some additional dangers because of the shutdowns and
border crossing controls that have been put in place because of
the pandemic.
MW: What about people in the film whose identities are clearly
visible, David Isteev and Olga Baranova in Moscow. How will this
film coming out affect their work?
FRANCE: Well, Olga was forced to leave Russia, as chronicled
in the film. David remains there with his colleagues doing the
work. Both of them felt that it was important for them to show
their faces in the film as a way to increase their physical safety,
to make them into public figures in a way that made it less
likely that anything very severe could happen to them, without
repercussions. For them, it was an act of self-defense that caused
them to want to keep their original faces in the film. In addition,
they wanted to let the world know about the work that they're
doing. Because they really need the support of world leaders to
continue to offer avenues for the people who have survived this
atrocity in Chechnya to find homes in new countries. They need
political partnership with Western countries to allow them to
do it. They also need you and me to know about the work that
they're doing, so that we can write about it, tell the world about
it, and support it. They need financial support. This film has
become a tool for them to let the world know how much help
that they really need, that they can't do this alone. They can't do
it just within the queer community.
As David says at one point in the film, he and the Russian
LGBT network and the Moscow Community Center, working
together, have been able to organize most of the international
queer organizations to be part of this underground railroad.
When they move people from one country to another, they hand
them to representatives of the queer organizations in those countries.
Those people help the refugees set themselves up safely.
They help them begin their work to integrate into their new
societies, into their new cultures. They do everything necessary
to keep them safe while they're there. This is really a story of the
queer community on a global level, who are responding in very
direct and increasingly dangerous ways to protect the people who
are being hunted around the globe by the Chechen authorities.
MW: I understand that it will help David and Olga to raise their
profiles. But on the other hand, in the film, you cover pop singer
Zelim Bakaev, who it seemed was targeted because he had such a
high profile. What has happened to him?
FRANCE: He is presumed dead, unfortunately. His profile unfortunately
was only in Chechnya and not outside of Chechnya. He
sings in Chechen. That meant that there was very little in the
way of international outcry around his disappearance.
MW: More people will know about it now, which is...
FRANCE: Which is unfortunately too late
for him.
MW: But hopefully it will be in time for
someone else. What do you hope this film
accomplishes?
FRANCE: The main thing I hope is that it helps the activists continue
the conversations that they need to have, in order to be
able to continue their work. The essential part of their work is to
continue saving lives. That's what I hope it will do.
Welcome to Chechnya is now available on HBO Max.
Visit www.hbo.com.
To reach the Russian LGBT Network hotline,
contact kavkaz@lgbtnet.org.
26
JULY 9, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM