Coming to HBO tonight Monday, October 6: HUNTED: THE WAR AGAINST GAYS IN RUSSIA
Ben Steele’s exposé of homophobia in Putin’s Russia has held special screenings at the Savannah Film Festival and elsewhere before its broadcast premiere tonight.
In the wake of the passage of blatantly homophobic laws by the Russian government that curry favor with the Russian Orthodox church and create a politically beneficial distraction via scapegoating, gaybashing, unsurprisingly, not only has been on the rise, but has seen its perpetrators emboldened. Encouraging the actions of vigilantes who rationalize their actions as upholding the law, or simply giving license to deeply disturbed, violent individuals, Putin’s war on homosexuality has created a sense of impunity for the victimizers, and depressing realization that there’s no official hope for redress by its victims. Steele’s film graphically demonstrates this, as the filmmaker, with seeming ease, gains the trust of several rabidly homophobic groups to follow them as they set sadistic traps or intimidate LGBT individuals, all on the very shaky pretense that they are instead targeting pedophiles – which they equate, unquestioningly, with homosexuals. These disturbing scenes, more powerful than the brief profiles of LGBT individuals offered here, provide the viewer with a palpable understanding of the atmosphere that’s been created in the nation. Though shot in a very straightforward style, with an often clunky narration delivered by Matt Bomer, what Steele’s featurette lacks in style, it makes up for in immediacy.
what (not) to doc 