Welcome to Chechnya

In Chechnya, people believed to be gay are detained, tortured, and in some cases handed to their families. The documentary follows an activist network trying to get them out of the country: safe houses, false passports, border crossings and asylum applications. David France directs. Its most striking feature is a technical solution. The lives of the people on camera were at risk and their faces had to be concealed, but blurring or shadow anonymises them and prevents any connection. Instead France used a deep learning face replacement: the faces of volunteers were mapped onto the people recorded. Expression, gesture and emotion survive; only identity changes. The choice was debated on documentary ethics, and the film does not hide it. Which faces are not real is stated on screen. In its most shattering passage, one of the protected people decides to reveal his identity and show his face, and that moment changes the structure of the entire film. It was released by HBO and won a great many awards. Who it is for: viewers interested in human rights documentary and in new methods in documentary form. Who it is not for: the footage of torture and the testimony are direct. It is genuinely hard to watch.