- A group of activists risk their lives fighting for LGBTQ+ rights in Chechnya.
- Chechnya, there are no homosexuals. That is what the tyrannical leader Ramzan Kadyrov has decided. Here we follow a group of activists who risk their lives to save LGBTQ + people who are threatened, detained, tortured and executed. The characters in the film have had their faces digitally altered to remain anonymous.—DR
- The movie starts showing how a girl ("Anya", 21) is asking for help to flee her family per mobile phone. She tells that her uncle discovered that she is lesbian and threatened to tell her father is she does not have sex with him. The interlocutor is David Isteev, a young man from the Russian LGBT Network, who seems eager and able to help her to get out of Chechenya.
Then the story moves backwards. It depicts how the recent wave of prosecution of homosexuals started in Chechenya on 2017, with the detention of one gay whose mobile had many contacts. Using the method of torturing each one to give more names, 2017 the regional government found hundreds of them. Tortures, detention and then release informing the family followed. It explains that the family will kill these people to "wash the dishonor".
An interview to Ruslan Kadirov, the dictator of Chechenya (under protection of Vladimir Putin) is shown, where he first denies that there ARE homosexuals in Chechenya, then insults them and says that they should all disappear, denies that his government has done any harm to them but states (encourages?) that their own families would kill them if they existed.
A single case of a man having to get out of there came to Mr. Isteev. He soon realized that there would be more and asked for help to his community. Later, international LGBT organizations stepped in sending money (evacuations are expensive) and airing the subject. The movie concentrates on a young man ("Grisha", later revealed to be Maxim Lapunov) whose family was supportive - as a result, the whole family had to move away from the region and was evacuated.
The movie follows then this gay and his beloved, long-term relationship, who also gets evacuated. Maxim Lapunov ends up being the first who openly denounces the tortures, which puts him in an extreme risk. It is also shown how the activists travel to Chechenya (!!!) to rescue "Anya".
Then the movie concentrates on the hardships on getting a visa, which were already suggested in various moments during the movie. "Anya" has to wait hidden in two apartments without being able even to throw the garbage, for almost a year, until she cannot take it anymore and disappears.
Olga Baranova, the other head of the Moscovite organization, also has to flee with her child to Europe, as she got identified. Mr. Isteev keeps working and saving lives from Russia.
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