FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE
With searing urgency, “Welcome to Chechnya” shadows a group of activists who risk unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ pogrom raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic.
Since 2017, Chechnya’s tyrannical leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has waged a depraved operation to “cleanse the blood” of LGBTQ Chechens, overseeing a government-directed campaign to detain, torture and execute them. With no help from the Kremlin and only faint global condemnation, activists take matters into their own hands. In his new documentary, David France uses a remarkable approach to anonymity to expose this atrocity and to tell the story of an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
Team
David France
DAVID FRANCE (Director) is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, New York Times bestselling author, and award-winning investigative journalist. His directorial debut, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, is hailed as an innovative and influential piece of storytelling and is regularly screened in university classrooms, and by community groups and AIDS service organizations. Appearing on over 20 “Best of the Year” lists, including Time and Entertainment Weekly, the documentary earned a GLAAD Awardand top honors from the Gotham Awards, the International Documentary Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Boston Society of Film Critics, and the Provincetown Film Festival, among many others. After a theatrical run reaching over 30 cities, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE was aired on PBS’ Independent Lens, reaching an audience of millions and garnering Academy and Emmy nominations and a Peabody Award. His 2017 film, THE DEATH & LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON, a Netflix Original Documentary, won numerous festival prizes and was awarded the Outfest “Freedom Award” and a special jury recognition from Sheffield International Documentary Festival. Critics put it on multiple “Best of the Year” lists (and gave it a 96% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes). David’s latest book, also titled HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (Knopf, 2016), received the Baillie Gifford Prize for best nonfiction book published in the English Language. In addition, France has seen his journalistic work inspire several films, including the Peabody-winning Showtime film SOLDIER’S GIRL, based on his New York Times Magazine story of the transgender girlfriend of a soldier killed in an anti-gay attack.
Photo © Igor Myakotin
Joy Tomchin
JOY TOMCHIN (Executive Producer, Producer) is the co-founder of Public Square Films. Joy’s first film, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, was nominated for an Oscar, an Independent Spirit, and a Director’s Guild Award, and won a Gotham Award for Best Documentary. Her most recent documentary, THE DEATH & LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON, won numerous festival prizes and was awarded the Outfest “Freedom Award” and a special jury recognition from Sheffield International Documentary Festival. She is a nationally recognized activist in the AIDS, lesbian and gay, transgender, women’s, and children’s rights movements. She has received the Victory Award in recognition of her service as co-chair for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (1992-1996) and the Judith Peabody Award for service to Gay Men’s Health Crisis (1985-1991).
Photo © Igor Myakotin
Alice Henty
ALICE HENTY (Producer) began her career in feature documentaries in 2000 with the Academy Award winning ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER. Prior to producing WELCOME TO CHECHNYA, she produced THE WORK in 2017, which won the Grand Jury prize at SXSW, the Audience Award at Sheffield and was a Gotham nominee. Additional previous credits include SKYLADDER (2016), HAPPY VALLEY (2014), CITIZEN KOCH (2013), BEWARE OF MR. BAKER (2012), BUCK (2011) and THE TILLMAN STORY (2010). Alice is a Sundance Creative Producing Fellow and an active member of the DPA. She co-founded Maylo Films in 2016 specifically to produce character-led, verité projects.
Photo © Igor Myakotin
Askold Kurov
ASKOLD KUROV (Producer & Cinematographer) was born in Uzbekistan in 1974 and has lived in Russia since 1991. After studying philology, theatre and theology, he took a degree in documentary filmmaking at the Marina Razbezhkina Film School in Moscow. In 2012 he was one of the directors of the award-winning documentary WINTER, GO AWAY! His next films, LENINLAND (2014), CHILDREN 404 (2017), and THE TRIAL: THE STATE OF RUSSIA VS OLEG SENTOV (2018) also won critical acclaim and screened at numerous festivals. His work focuses on human rights issues and social conflicts in contemporary Russia
Tyler H. Walk
TYLER H. WALK (Editor) is a Cinema Eye award winning and Emmy-nominated editor whose most recent projects include Michael Moore’s WHERE TO INVADE NEXT, David France’s Oscar-nominated documentary HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE and follow up THE DEATH & LIFE of MARSHA P. JOHNSON, Sara Taksler’s TICKLING GIANTS, and Eric Weinrib's ROSEANNE FOR PRESIDENT! A graduate of Penn State University and The Edit Center, Tyler is also an amateur pinballer and pretend rock star by night. In addition to cutting feature films, Tyler is directing his first feature about the Small-World Phenomenon.
Igor Myakotin
IGOR MYAKOTIN (Co-Producer) is a documentary filmmaker from the Russian Far East who searches for cinematic authenticity and character-driven stories. Igor's latest short documentary SWAN SONG was invited to premiere at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in 2018 and received an award for Outstanding Documentary Filmmaking at the 38th FINE CUTS at The New School in New York City. He also worked as a cinematographer on Melody Gilbert's feature documentary SILICONE SOUL (DOC NYC ‘18, Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival ‘18). Igor is an alumnus of NextDoc, a year-long fellowship that brings together emerging documentary storytellers from diverse backgrounds across the country with award-winning documentary filmmakers to learn, share, and build their skills. Currenytly, he is directing his first feature-length documentary.
Evgueni Galperine and Sacha Galperine
EVGUENI GALPERINE AND SACHA GALPERINE (Composers) relocated to France from their native Russia in 1990 to complete the classical music training they’d begun in Moscow. Soon after arriving in Paris, Evgueni was drawn to composing film scores while still studying symphonic composition and electro-acoustic music at the National Conservatory (CNSM) in Paris. Sacha turned to rock and electronic music after receiving a first prize for violin performance at the Conservatory of Versailles. For several years, Evgueni and Sacha have pooled their respective talents and experience to create music for cinema. Their exceptionally broad musical palette, knowledge of cinema and distinctive sound, forged by a unique fraternal bond, has rapidly won the duo the notice of directors from diverse origins and genres. Examples of their work include scores for LOVELESS by Andreï Zvyagintsev, THE PAST by Asghar Farhadi, THE WIZARD OF LIES by Barry Levinson, THE FAMILY by Luc Besson, the French hit series LE BARON NOIR by Ziad Doueri, LA FAMILIE BELIER and THE BIG PICTURE by Eric Lartigau. Their music has also been featured in films like THE HUNGER GAMES by Gary Ross, SPLIT by M. Night Shayamalan, and RUST AND BONE by Jacques Audiard. 2018 saw the duo scoring François Ozon’s new film, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, RADIOACTIVE for director Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), THE HARVESTERS for Etienne Kallos (Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2018), and SAVAGE for Vincent Mariette.
Ryan Laney
RYAN LANEY (Visual Effects) has a long career using technology to support storytelling for blockbuster movies and special interest projects. He developed effects for Manex Entertainment, Industrial Light and Magic, Digital Domain, and Sony Pictures Imageworks before founding his own company. For Manex, he developed swarming sentinels and an efficient rendering workflow for the Matrix franchise. At ILM, he wrote a custom cloud renderer and animation tools for Hidalgo, worked on crowd and rendering pipeline for a Harry Potter film, and designed effects animation tools for MEN IN BLACK II. At Digital Domain, he liaised between software and effects departments to shepherd NYC flooding work for THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. At Sony, he developed realistic water system for THE AVIATOR, built cross department tools for GREEN LANTERN and G-FORCE, and was involved with the design of what are now industry standard tools and workflows. He authored a master class based on a modular destruction system he wrote for Zathura and was nominated for an Annie Award for his groundbreaking development of an interdisciplinary suite of tools to build, animate, and render goo in SPIDER-MAN 3. His visual effects company designs bespoke software that removes technical limitations for filmmakers and storytellers.
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