Kvedaravichyus: film about kidnappings and torture in Chechnya gives an actual picture

The documentary "Barzakh" telling about facts of torture and kidnappings in Chechnya, which was presented at film festivals in Lithuania, Switzerland and Spain, aims to tell the world about the situation in today's Chechnya, the Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravichyus told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Barzakh" was screened at the International Film Festival "Kino Pavasaris" (Spring of Movies) in Vilnius, at the Festival of Documentary Films "Vision du Reel" in the Swiss city of Nyon and in Spain at the Film Festival "San Sebastiana" held on April 14-16. According to the author, the picture should attract attention of those people in different countries who are not interested in the Chechen topic and give them the feeling of the atmosphere, in which residents of Chechnya live today.

"One of my goals when showing the film at festivals was to attract the attention of the people who had not been aware of what is happening in Chechnya, who were not interested in this topic and knew little about it. And I think that this goal was reached in some sense. At the Vilnius Film Festival we showed it four times and always the hall was packed. Spectators said after watching the film: 'It looked as we had known something about the today's Chechnya, but now we realize that such things exist, and such things really happen in this world.' The feelings of the people shown in the film have become their experiences," said Kvedaravichyus.

The director noted that when the film was on in Vilnius, there was silence in the full 700-seat hall. "Nobody even moved. Everyone looked paralyzed," said Mantas Kvedaravichyus.