2021 Nominees

Welcome to Chechnya: The Gay Purge

Public Square Films, Maylo Films

USA, UK

- Social Issues & Current Affairs

WELCOME TO CHECHNYA premiered and won top awards at both Sundance and Berlinale, earning high praise with attention to its reporting (“searing, hard-hitting”–The Hollywood Reporter), storytelling (“summons the nervous energy of a peak Bourne thriller”–The Guardian), and craft (“This is tour de force documentary filmmaking on a level rarely seen and experienced”–Film Threat) when it was released on HBO, BBC Storyville, BBC News Russian and others later that year. The film shatters Russia’s denials (“the humanitarian emergency is now impossible to deny,” per HUFFPOST) and calls other governments to action. Following a Capitol Hill screening in July, the US State Department issued sanctions against Kadyrov three years after the genocide began, specifically citing their crimes against LGBTQ Chechens. On International Human Rights Day in December the UK Foreign Office and the US Treasury simultaneously levelled new sanctions against Kadyrov for violations against LGBTQI Chechens.