The story shocked the world 10 years ago: the Copenhagen Zoo’s decision to euthanize a healthy two-year-old giraffe named Marius because they considered it a “surplus animal.” CNN reported on it. So did Le Monde in France, the U.K.’s Guardian and The Independent, and the Irish Times.
The New York Times wrote on February 9, 2014: “Marius the reticulated giraffe died at the Copenhagen Zoo on Sunday. He was 2 years old. The cause of death was a shotgun blast, and after a public autopsy, the animal, who was 11 feet 6 inches, was fed to the zoo’s lions and other big cats.”
Marius the giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo days on February 7, 2014, before he was euthanized.
A decade after the death of Marius, the Cph:dox festival in Copenhagen hosted the world premiere of Life and Other Problems, a documentary that uses the case of Marius to ponder the interconnectivity of species,...
The New York Times wrote on February 9, 2014: “Marius the reticulated giraffe died at the Copenhagen Zoo on Sunday. He was 2 years old. The cause of death was a shotgun blast, and after a public autopsy, the animal, who was 11 feet 6 inches, was fed to the zoo’s lions and other big cats.”
Marius the giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo days on February 7, 2014, before he was euthanized.
A decade after the death of Marius, the Cph:dox festival in Copenhagen hosted the world premiere of Life and Other Problems, a documentary that uses the case of Marius to ponder the interconnectivity of species,...
- 3/16/2024
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Fifteen years from its inception, YouTube retains the power to shock and disorient — particularly when wielded by children who have lived their whole lives in its era. A found-footage documentary composed entirely of social media videos by teenagers weathering hostile education and a climate of terror in contemporary Russia, “Manifesto” contains one vignette after another to make viewers wince with discomfort and even outright horror. One’s first impulse might be to ask whether any documentary should show such material at all — yet of course, it has been freely available for public viewing all along. As such, “Manifesto” invites uneasy consideration of the differing responsibilities of creating, consuming and externally curating candid video, and provides no guidance.
In selecting and assembling several years’ worth of amateur video into a constructed, collective life-in-a-day feature, the presumably pseudonymous filmmaker Angie Vinchito takes considerable risks of decontextualization. There’s no narration to bind...
In selecting and assembling several years’ worth of amateur video into a constructed, collective life-in-a-day feature, the presumably pseudonymous filmmaker Angie Vinchito takes considerable risks of decontextualization. There’s no narration to bind...
- 11/18/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
In 2017, Russia’s Chechen Republic declared open season on LGBTQ people, launching what Human Rights Watch has called a “vicious large-scale anti-gay purge.” David France, director of the HBO documentary Welcome to Chechnya, says there’s another word for it.
“It’s an absolute genocide,” France said during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted awards-season event. “It’s the first time since Hitler that a government leader has declared a campaign to round up and eliminate the LGBTQ community. …That’s what’s going on in Chechnya, that’s what’s being permitted by the Russian government, and that’s what we wanted to show in this film.”
The documentary unfolds like a thriller as activists with the Russian LGBT Network enter Chechnya to exfiltrate gay people in danger of being tortured or killed by Chechen authorities. The filmmakers, including director of photography and producer Askold Kurov,...
“It’s an absolute genocide,” France said during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted awards-season event. “It’s the first time since Hitler that a government leader has declared a campaign to round up and eliminate the LGBTQ community. …That’s what’s going on in Chechnya, that’s what’s being permitted by the Russian government, and that’s what we wanted to show in this film.”
The documentary unfolds like a thriller as activists with the Russian LGBT Network enter Chechnya to exfiltrate gay people in danger of being tortured or killed by Chechen authorities. The filmmakers, including director of photography and producer Askold Kurov,...
- 5/1/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
David France’s “Welcome to Chechnya” could very well make Oscar history as the first documentary to be nominated for Best Visual Effects.
The documentary details the brutality the LGBTQ community faces in Chechnya at the hands of the government. France goes inside the shocking and horrific genocide that Chechnyan leader Ramzan Kadyrov is unleashing on people who live in danger because of their sexual orientation.
Grisha is one of the many brave subjects who go on the record to talk to France about being tortured and beaten at the hands of this regime. But his identity is protected, so that is where Ryan Laney stepped in as visual effects supervisor, using digital face replacement technology.
France reached out after reading an article in The New Yorker about a safe house network in Chechnya and was compelled to tell the story. He contacted the people at the safe house over...
The documentary details the brutality the LGBTQ community faces in Chechnya at the hands of the government. France goes inside the shocking and horrific genocide that Chechnyan leader Ramzan Kadyrov is unleashing on people who live in danger because of their sexual orientation.
Grisha is one of the many brave subjects who go on the record to talk to France about being tortured and beaten at the hands of this regime. But his identity is protected, so that is where Ryan Laney stepped in as visual effects supervisor, using digital face replacement technology.
France reached out after reading an article in The New Yorker about a safe house network in Chechnya and was compelled to tell the story. He contacted the people at the safe house over...
- 3/8/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
For LGBTQ people in Chechnya, life has become a nightmare.
The Russian republic has never been very hospitable to gays, but in 2017 the Chechen government launched an outright purge against perceived members of the LGBTQ community.
“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 of Un human rights experts wrote in 2019.
Since then the situation has only worsened, as witnessed in the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Welcome to Chechnya, directed by David France. The film contains first-hand accounts from torture survivors who were spirited to safety through a clandestine “rainbow railroad” operated by the Russian LGBT Network.
“We see irrefutable evidence that it is a government-controlled genocide,” France tells Deadline, “and that’s something that we haven’t seen since Hitler against the LGBTQ community—this belief that...
The Russian republic has never been very hospitable to gays, but in 2017 the Chechen government launched an outright purge against perceived members of the LGBTQ community.
“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 of Un human rights experts wrote in 2019.
Since then the situation has only worsened, as witnessed in the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Welcome to Chechnya, directed by David France. The film contains first-hand accounts from torture survivors who were spirited to safety through a clandestine “rainbow railroad” operated by the Russian LGBT Network.
“We see irrefutable evidence that it is a government-controlled genocide,” France tells Deadline, “and that’s something that we haven’t seen since Hitler against the LGBTQ community—this belief that...
- 3/3/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
When Bryan Fogel set out to make “The Dissident,” his intrepid and arresting exposé on the assassination of Saudi Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, he knew there were myriad security risks involved. There was the matter of Khashoggi’s killing—a brutal one, his body sawed into parts—at the hands of a Saudi murder squad, a death that US intelligence agencies have determined with a high degree of certainty was ordered by the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. But there was danger lurking around every corner of this high-octane thriller, one that sent a shiver of terror down the spines of not only career journalists, but human rights activists and political dissidents globalwide. Fogel, a cinematic troubadour in the dogged pursuit of truth, was undeterred. Armed with exclusive access to Turkish criminal files, he embarked on a daring quest to unveil all facts in the...
- 1/27/2021
- by Malina Saval
- Variety Film + TV
In early 2017, reports began to emerge out of Chechnya that authorities were detaining gay men and subjecting them to torture and humiliation. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov immediately repudiated the claims (he maintains that there are no LGBTQ individuals in Chechnya), but the documentary evidence of abuse is impossible to deny.
In response to the anti-gay purges, a group of queer activists in Russia began an underground operation to evacuate queer Chechens and place them in safe houses in Moscow until they could flee the country. Upon hearing about this movement, journalist and filmmaker David France (an Oscar nominee for ...
In response to the anti-gay purges, a group of queer activists in Russia began an underground operation to evacuate queer Chechens and place them in safe houses in Moscow until they could flee the country. Upon hearing about this movement, journalist and filmmaker David France (an Oscar nominee for ...
In early 2017, reports began to emerge out of Chechnya that authorities were detaining gay men and subjecting them to torture and humiliation. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov immediately repudiated the claims (he maintains that there are no LGBTQ individuals in Chechnya), but the documentary evidence of abuse is impossible to deny.
In response to the anti-gay purges, a group of queer activists in Russia began an underground operation to evacuate queer Chechens and place them in safe houses in Moscow until they could flee the country. Upon hearing about this movement, journalist and filmmaker David France (an Oscar nominee for ...
In response to the anti-gay purges, a group of queer activists in Russia began an underground operation to evacuate queer Chechens and place them in safe houses in Moscow until they could flee the country. Upon hearing about this movement, journalist and filmmaker David France (an Oscar nominee for ...
HBO’s “Welcome to Chechnya” is one of the most brutal documentaries of the year, centering on the torture and abuse of LGBTQ people in the Chechen Republic of Russia and the efforts of local activists to protect those at risk. Director David France filmed in complete secrecy and used face swap technology to protect the identities of those fleeing persecution in Chechnya. The film deftly bounces between multiple stories as we follow young men and women identified as “Grisha” and “Anya” as they go on a perilous journey to safety with help from activists who have set up a secret shelter in Moscow. “Grisha” is eventually joined by his boyfriend, “Bogdan,” who temporarily find safety together only to have no choice but to move on and stay elsewhere.
Seehbo’s Roy Cohn documentary ‘Bully. Coward. Victim.’ is a uniquely personal look at Trump’s former lawyer
The story of...
Seehbo’s Roy Cohn documentary ‘Bully. Coward. Victim.’ is a uniquely personal look at Trump’s former lawyer
The story of...
- 10/29/2020
- by Kevin Jacobsen
- Gold Derby
David France, the director of “Welcome to Chechnya,” can’t say for sure that his documentary played a role in pushing the U.S. government to place sanctions on the country’s leader, but it certainly looks that way.
The film, about the Chechen government’s sanctioned arrests and torture of LGBTQ people in the autonomous Russian region, premiered less than a month ago on HBO. And just last week, on July 17, there was a virtual screening and Q&a hosted by the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C., in partnership with the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, Freedom House, the Human Rights Campaign Fund and the Rainbow Railroad.
Three days later, the U.S. State Department sanctioned Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov for “gross violations of human rights.”
“I was surprised because this issue has been alive for three years, and this administration has been silent about it,” France told Variety on Wednesday.
The film, about the Chechen government’s sanctioned arrests and torture of LGBTQ people in the autonomous Russian region, premiered less than a month ago on HBO. And just last week, on July 17, there was a virtual screening and Q&a hosted by the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C., in partnership with the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, Freedom House, the Human Rights Campaign Fund and the Rainbow Railroad.
Three days later, the U.S. State Department sanctioned Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov for “gross violations of human rights.”
“I was surprised because this issue has been alive for three years, and this administration has been silent about it,” France told Variety on Wednesday.
- 7/23/2020
- by Marc Malkin
- Variety Film + TV
“We don’t have such people here,” declares Ramzan Kadyrov, chuckling to himself. “We don’t have any gays.” The head of the Chechen Republic is talking to David Scott of the HBO show Real Sports, and his assertions were more or less echoed by Russian officials when they addressed the U.N. in regards to a litany of human-rights violations. When pressed further about allegations of persecuting homosexuals in his country, Kadyrov wearily counters with: “They made it up.”
Most filmmakers would kick off an investigative look at LGBTQ...
Most filmmakers would kick off an investigative look at LGBTQ...
- 6/30/2020
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Within two weeks of David France reading an article in The New Yorker about the persecution of Lgtbq people in Chechnya, he was on a plane headed to Moscow.
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. Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the autonomous region of Russia, enacted a campaign in 2017 to find, imprison, torture and sometimes kill LGBTQ Chechens. Many who survived imprisonment have fled to Moscow, where they live in a safe house while seeking political asylum in other countries.
“What I learned from that story in The New Yorker was that the crimes that had been exposed earlier in the year hadn’t stopped, that nothing about the exposure in the world media, nothing about the expressions of outrage from European leaders, nothing about the meek, near silence from...
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. Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the autonomous region of Russia, enacted a campaign in 2017 to find, imprison, torture and sometimes kill LGBTQ Chechens. Many who survived imprisonment have fled to Moscow, where they live in a safe house while seeking political asylum in other countries.
“What I learned from that story in The New Yorker was that the crimes that had been exposed earlier in the year hadn’t stopped, that nothing about the exposure in the world media, nothing about the expressions of outrage from European leaders, nothing about the meek, near silence from...
- 6/30/2020
- by Marc Malkin
- Variety Film + TV
No one familiar with Dan Stevens’ past performances in the likes of 2014’s The Guest or FX’s Legion doubted that the actor would give his all playing a larger than life pop sensation in Netflix’s Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, but he still managed to be the focus of much of the online chatter from viewers who streamed the film after it landed this June.
In the movie, headlined by Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams, Stevens plays Alexander Lemtov, an outlandish Russian singer who seems to have a Eurovision win in the bag, but there’s a lot more going on under the surface of his story, as ‘Mother Russia’ has only allowed him the level of freedom and success he’s achieved so far at the cost of hiding his true identity. “There are no gay people in Russia,” Lemtov asserts, echoing the disturbing...
In the movie, headlined by Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams, Stevens plays Alexander Lemtov, an outlandish Russian singer who seems to have a Eurovision win in the bag, but there’s a lot more going on under the surface of his story, as ‘Mother Russia’ has only allowed him the level of freedom and success he’s achieved so far at the cost of hiding his true identity. “There are no gay people in Russia,” Lemtov asserts, echoing the disturbing...
- 6/30/2020
- by Kirsten Howard
- Den of Geek
At the same time when Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964–which explicitly prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”–is decided by the U.S. Supreme Court to also protect people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, queer people all over the world are still struggling to be recognized—and keep their lives.
David France’s urgent, yet straightforward new documentary Welcome to Chechnya captures the plight of LGBTQ people in Chechnya as Ramzan Kadyrov, Head of the Chechen Republic, sees to the systematic beating, dehumanizing, and killing of queer Chechens. Since 2016, Kadyrov has waged a ruthless campaign to “cleanse the blood” of traumatized LGBTQ+ Chechens. The story begins with the first wave of attacks in February 2017 when authorities arrested a man they suspected was high in public. They searched his phone and found contacts for dozens of gay men. France’s...
David France’s urgent, yet straightforward new documentary Welcome to Chechnya captures the plight of LGBTQ people in Chechnya as Ramzan Kadyrov, Head of the Chechen Republic, sees to the systematic beating, dehumanizing, and killing of queer Chechens. Since 2016, Kadyrov has waged a ruthless campaign to “cleanse the blood” of traumatized LGBTQ+ Chechens. The story begins with the first wave of attacks in February 2017 when authorities arrested a man they suspected was high in public. They searched his phone and found contacts for dozens of gay men. France’s...
- 6/18/2020
- by Joshua Encinias
- The Film Stage
You can do anything with a face on screen these days, whether it’s shaving decades off with a digital scalpel or deepfaking it into unrecognizable oblivion. Usually this wizardry has the air of a stunt, a transformation pulled off merely because it’s possible. Never, however, have such effects proven as chillingly essential as they are in “Welcome to Chechnya,” a vital, pulse-quickening new documentary from journalist-turned-filmmaker David France that urgently lifts the lid on one of the most horrifying humanitarian crises of present times: the state-sanctioned purge of Lgbtq people in the eponymous southern Russian republic. Closely charting multiple missions to extract and protect brutalized victims of the regime, France collects the candid first-person perspectives that have proven difficult to come by in this climate of terror — thanks in large part to face-altering technology that keeps their identities hidden, but not their searing truth.
Premiering in competition at...
Premiering in competition at...
- 1/28/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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 the country for peace and safety.
It’s very much of a piece with the earlier films from journalist-turned-filmmaker David France: His stirring, Oscar-nominated “How to Survive a Plague” showed how gay men and their allies in 1980s New York City stepped up to face the HIV/AIDS crisis in the face of government indifference, while “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” used the ongoing investigation into the death of a legendary trans activist to examine transphobia in the NYPD and other government institutions.
With “Chechnya,” France goes behind enemy lines in an ongoing crisis: the systematic beatings, torture and “honor killings” of Lgbt people under the Putin-backed regime of strongman dictator Ramzan Kadyrov. The...
It’s very much of a piece with the earlier films from journalist-turned-filmmaker David France: His stirring, Oscar-nominated “How to Survive a Plague” showed how gay men and their allies in 1980s New York City stepped up to face the HIV/AIDS crisis in the face of government indifference, while “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” used the ongoing investigation into the death of a legendary trans activist to examine transphobia in the NYPD and other government institutions.
With “Chechnya,” France goes behind enemy lines in an ongoing crisis: the systematic beatings, torture and “honor killings” of Lgbt people under the Putin-backed regime of strongman dictator Ramzan Kadyrov. The...
- 1/26/2020
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
Over the course of his filmmaking career, David France has made urgent political documentaries about Lgbtq rights, first with the AIDS pandemic and the founders of Act Up (the Oscar-nominated “How to Survive a Plague”), then the first transgender rights activists (“The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”). His third film, “Welcome to Chechnya,” completes what he dubs in a director’s statement his “outsider activism” trilogy. Using guerrilla filmmaking tactics to shoot inside the heavily policed region, “Welcome to Chechnya” uncovers the horrific state-sanctioned detainment, torture, and execution of Lgbtq Chechens, humanizing the victims while protecting their identities with groundbreaking VFX technology.
The film’s central figures are the activists who risk their own lives in order to help evacuate at-risk people from Chechnya. The stakes are beyond high as the film opens with David Isteev, head of Russia’s largest gay rights group The Russian Lgbt Network,...
The film’s central figures are the activists who risk their own lives in order to help evacuate at-risk people from Chechnya. The stakes are beyond high as the film opens with David Isteev, head of Russia’s largest gay rights group The Russian Lgbt Network,...
- 1/26/2020
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Not a great look for Ufc superstar Khabib Nurmagomedov ... who posed for a picture with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov just weeks after reports of another "gay purge" in Chechnya. Khabib posted a caption along with the friendly photo which says, "Thank you for the hospitality of [Ramzan Kadyrov]. May the Almighty protect you and the entire Chechen people." The issue ... just last month, multiple media outlets, including the BBC, reported that Chechen officials rounded up gay people and tortured them.
- 2/4/2019
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
Khabib Nurmagomedov was such a VIP at the Paris St-Germaine soccer game in France on Wednesday .... he sat In Front of Leonardo DiCaprio and Mick Jagger! Check out the pic ... Leo and Mick -- trying to go incognito in baseball hats -- were spotted 1 row behind the Ufc star as Neymar and Psg took on Liverpool at Parc des Princes. Khabib was personally invited to the game by the team owners -- how cool is that?...
- 11/28/2018
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
Khabib Nurmagomedov rubbed elbows with another powerful political figure Thursday night -- Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov ... a man who's been accused of some pretty horrible stuff. The two hung out at a Russian Mma gym -- described as a fight club -- where they posed for pics, ate some food and celebrated Khabib's victory over Conor McGregor at Ufc 229. Khabib commented about the meeting saying, "Thank you very much to Ramzan and all brotherly Chechnya.
- 10/12/2018
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
The authorities of Russia's Republic of Chechnya have slammed CNN over a report that Egyptian soccer star Mo Salah could leave the national squad in the wake of controversy involving his pictures with Chechnya's autocratic leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
"This is a lie, this is rubbish," Dzhambulat Umarov, Chechnya's minister for national policy, foreign relations, print and information, said on the air of the radio station Govorit Moskva on Sunday.
"[Salah] couldn't make statements like that," he went on to say. "CNN defamed and put in an awkward position Mohamed Salah who is full ...
"This is a lie, this is rubbish," Dzhambulat Umarov, Chechnya's minister for national policy, foreign relations, print and information, said on the air of the radio station Govorit Moskva on Sunday.
"[Salah] couldn't make statements like that," he went on to say. "CNN defamed and put in an awkward position Mohamed Salah who is full ...
- 6/25/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
You have to go back to Argentina ’78 for a World Cup played out against a more politically charged backdrop than Russia 2018.
The quadrennial tournament, which gets underway Thursday and runs through July 15, has been readied with Russia ever-present on the global news agenda due to wars in Ukraine and Syria, the Olympic doping scandal, meddling in Western elections and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Those controversies go some way to explaining why a handful of world leaders have decided not to attend the competition.
Just as Brazil 2014 kicked off with major protests due to the exorbitant cost of stadia, Russia 2018 has its own set of concerns on the ground.
First and foremost is security. After months of negative news cycles, it’s time for Russia’s big close-up, and putting on a good and safe show is paramount for Vladimir Putin (who isn’t a big soccer fan...
The quadrennial tournament, which gets underway Thursday and runs through July 15, has been readied with Russia ever-present on the global news agenda due to wars in Ukraine and Syria, the Olympic doping scandal, meddling in Western elections and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Those controversies go some way to explaining why a handful of world leaders have decided not to attend the competition.
Just as Brazil 2014 kicked off with major protests due to the exorbitant cost of stadia, Russia 2018 has its own set of concerns on the ground.
First and foremost is security. After months of negative news cycles, it’s time for Russia’s big close-up, and putting on a good and safe show is paramount for Vladimir Putin (who isn’t a big soccer fan...
- 6/12/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
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