Premiered earlier this year by the BBC in the UK and on HBO in the US, the documentary can now be watched by the BBC’s Russian-speaking audiences in Russia as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, thanks to exclusive rights acquired by BBC News Russian.

“If they don’t kill you, you’re a winner.”

Directed by documentary filmmaker David France, in association with BBC Storyville, Welcome To Chechnya tells a story of Maxim Lapunov, the first gay man to come forward about being tortured in a secret prison in Chechnya in March 2017.

Russian LGBTQ+ activists from the Moscow Community Centre for LGBT+ Initiatives and the Russian LGBT Network helped Maxim and his family to flee Russia after they received threats. The BBC documentary follows activists, David Isteev and Olga Baranova, who have helped more than 100 Chechen gays and lesbians to flee first Grozny and then Russia via a network of safehouses and eventually reach safe destinations. In the final frames of the film, David Isteev concludes: “But we can’t just walk away. This story needs a proper ending. And that’s still very far away. Anyway, if they don’t kill you, you’re a winner.”

Welcome To Chechnya has pioneered the use of AI technology to shield the identities of at-risk gays and lesbians fleeing Chechnya. The making of the documentary involved extensive post-production work, using faces of activist volunteers in the US to replace the faces of more than 20 individuals featured in the film to make sure they are unidentifiable.

BBC Storyville partners with world-class filmmakers in bringing the world’s best feature documentary stories to festival, cinema and television audiences. Bringing fearless, provocative and engrossing films to broad audiences, BBC Storyville has a reputation for producing award-winning, critically acclaimed titles and has been home to more than 700 films from some 70 countries. Welcome To Chechnya won a 2020 Sundance Film Festival prize and received critical acclaim.

BBC News Russian Editor Jenny Norton says: “We have been following this story since the first reports emerged in the spring of 2017 of mass abductions and torture of gay people in Chechnya. Welcome To Chechnya is a world class documentary and I welcome the fact that our audiences across 11 countries will now have the chance to watch it in Russian.”

David France adds: “I have been thrilled at the strong reception for Welcome to Chechnya as it rolls out around the globe. Finally, with BBC News Russian, we bring the film back to the country where it was filmed, and into the homes of everyday Russians as well as Russian speakers in so many countries. The whole world is now witness to these urgent stories.”

Welcome To Chechnya: The Gay Purge is available for viewing on the BBC News Russian website and YouTube channel, as well as via VKontakte.

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