WELCOME TO CHECHNYA: A Harrowing Account of LGBTQ Genocide

cw: sexual abuse, suicide

When does journalism veer into exploitation? It’s a tough question to answer, seeing as a significant part of reporting involves relaying traumatising information that has an overwhelming public interest. For example, a failure to publish or broadcast the full extent of a case involving significant human rights abuses despite mounting evidence could be misinterpreted as something approaching censorship, acting against the public need for this information to be out in the open, even if the only action taken is blurring a piece of footage in an early evening news broadcast.

After all, protecting viewers from seeing harmful imagery, while still informing them of the full horrors of a particularly troubling story, is an eternally tough balancing act – especially when the uncensored footage usually exists online, and news outlets are often accused of hiding information through omission.

A Disturbing Account of LGBT Life under the Kadyrov Regime

This is something that went through my mind more than once just David France’s gruelling documentary Welcome to Chechnya, an important work of journalism about the anti-gay purges in the Russian region that has seen LGBT people imprisoned, tortured and often killed. With these abuses not just denied, but openly mocked by the head of state Ramzan Kadyrov, the necessity of using such unsettling archive footage that shows innocent people attacked and tortured on the streets is inarguable, and the Russian LGBT Network’s mission to rescue people from the state and help them find international asylum truly heroic. 

But France and editor Tyler H. Walk make the mistake of using this footage as unsettling punctuation within a documentary that doesn’t need to rely on such extremity, such is its power in capturing the harrowing extremes of Kadyrov’s regime. For example, we hear within the opening few minutes the testimony of a young Muslim girl (named “Anya”, although all names have been changed) whose sexuality has been discovered by her uncle, who vows to tell her parents if he can’t continue to abuse her. Although innovative visual effects have been used to put a face on each victim without revealing their identity to homophobic authorities, this humanises an unimaginable horror without needing to “water down” the story. 

It makes their decision to include footage of everything from sexual assault to an apparent honour killing all the more exploitative – the scale of human rights abuses is so clearly laid out, the need to resort to such traumatising footage as supplementary material proves somewhat ill-considered. From the opening moments, we are never in doubt about the cruelty of the regime, and the life-threatening danger LGBT people in the region find themselves in.

And while some of these earlier “intercepted” videos, depicting casual violence against people perceived to be gay, are undeniably harrowing, their inclusion doesn’t feel as exploitative as (to name the most triggering example) the grainy cameraphone footage of a victim’s face, reacting to being raped. Through interviews we know this is a common occurrence – there wasn’t a similar need to “put a face” to the abuse as there was elsewhere. 

The Most Urgent Documentary of the Year – but not without flaws

It’s a shame, as these brief moments make it harder for me to wholeheartedly encourage people to see what is otherwise the most urgent documentary of the year. The film is at its strongest when capturing how the Russian LGBT Network works to free LGBT people from Chechnya, largely focusing on the operation to rescue “Anya”.

Despite events from the past few years proving it a reality, many people still struggle to comprehend how such nakedly fascistic regimes could exist within the developed world – and nothing lingers on the mind more than Anya being met by undercover members of the network at a McDonald’s style fast food restaurant, children’s cartoons playing on a TV in the corner. If it wasn’t for the language barrier, this could easily look like Europe or America, and not within the centre of a regime quietly murdering its own citizens.

France’s previous film, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, was criticised of exploiting the activist’s death by some viewers, and that charge is likely to stick here when it comes to how he utilises apparent snuff films. But despite being paced like a thriller due to the unimaginably high stakes, that complaint can’t be made about the depictions of the rescue operations, even with the subjects being in an unimaginably vulnerable position as they try to leave the state.

This extends to the organisation placing victims in a safe house in an undisclosed area elsewhere in Russia, where the necessity to lie low becomes all the more difficult within an authoritarian state. When one man attempts suicide, the others have to nurse him back to health, as calling an ambulance will only give away their location and wider operation – an already harrowing moment that ruins its insight into how the organisation responds to a crisis by France’s bizarre choice to zoom in and focus on the suicide method used. Even when it’s possible to capture harrowing moments sensitively, he still opts for an unnecessarily exploitative route.

The documentary’s final stages are among its most urgent, as one man comes forward with his identity and intention to go to the European Court of Human Rights. But things don’t neatly resolve here; the regime continues to “purge” its LGBT population, with many high profile figures still noted as missing during the time of writing, and several international governments (most notably the Trump administration) refusing to accept any LGBT refugees who have been rescued. It’s an ongoing humanitarian crisis many people may not be aware of – and yet I can only recommend an otherwise exceptional documentary to those who will be able to handle what amounts to less than a minute of triggering exploitative footage. 

Conclusion

Welcome to Chechnya is likely to be the most urgent documentary of the year, but often mistakes capturing the harrowing reality of life in this regime with subjecting the audience to footage that shouldn’t be viewed outside of court proceedings. 

Welcome to Chechnya airs at 10pm on Tuesday, June 30, on HBO in the USA. In the UK, it airs on Wednesday, July 1, on BBC Four.

Watch Welcome to Chechnya