Moscow screens film about Yuri Schekochikhin

The Moscow Central House of Journalists has held a show of the documentary made by Eugenia Golovnya named "Yuri Schekochikhin. Once I was...". The film lasts for 38 minutes; and the author said that she has much more materials on the topic.

Earlier, the film took part in the 16th International Film Festival on Human Rights "Stalker", which was held in Moscow on December 10-15, 2010.

"Soon we plan to release a four-part film about Yuri. We still have to agree on all copyrights, and restore the picture and sound in old documentary footages," noted the film director.

According to her story, the film can be treated as a sort of a portrait of the generation. The film consists of several parts, each of them begins with the words "Once I was...". The part about the start of his journalism is called "Once I was in Wonderland"; there is the part "Once I was a deputy…" about Schekochikhin's work in the State Duma.

One of the parts - "Once I was at war..." - presents footage from Chechnya. Soldiers, who call themselves "Battalion named after Djohar Dudaev", were trading firearms - 150 US dollars per unit.

Eugenia Golovnya, the film director, has noted that the Yuri's work during the war and his rescue of prisoners-of-war are topics for a separate film. She touched on the death of Schekochikhin, the circumstances of which have not been clarified yet.

The audience included friends and colleagues of Yuri Schekochikhin - Dmitry Muratov, Alexei Simonov, Pavel Gutionov and others.

Let us remind you that Yuri Schekochikhin was deputy chairman of Russian State Duma committee on security, a well-known legislator and publicist; he was a member of the executive board of the Organizing Committee of the Historical and Educational Society "Memorial" and an UN expert on organized crime; he also collaborated with the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta".

In March-April 1997, he took part in liberation of Russian Army servicemen, forcibly detained in the territory of Chechnya during the warfare.

Shortly before his death, in 2002-2003, Yuri Schekochikhin was a member of the Public Commission for investigating of explosions of houses in Moscow and Volgodonsk, and exercises in Ryazan in September 1999.

Yuri Schekochikhin died at night on July 3, 2003, in Moscow.

September 2010 saw presentation of the book by Yuri Schekochikhin "Three Epochs of Russian Journalism", published by the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University.